Research and Advocacy Programme to Promote Management of Natural Resources for Sustainable Development Activities

Economic governance for sustainable management of natural resources
The Centre for Research and Development is advocating for policy reforms in the management of natural resources in order to overcome the ‘resource curse tag’ associated with the exploitation of mineral resources like diamonds and platinum. Through research and advocacy CRD was able to expose human rights abuses and the illicit diamond mining and trade that were taking place in Marange from 2008.This prompted the Kimberly Process to intervene and the government was challenged to comply with the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme minimum standsrds.The KP Plenary meeting in Washington of November 2012 resolved to lift the KP special measures on Marange in light of government’s efforts in implementing the Administrative decisions adopted in 2011 in Kinshasha.CRD will continue to monitor the situation in Marange not only as a member of the KPSC Civil Society Coalition but to advance Civil Society efforts towards the formulation of coherent policy frame work that promote revenue transparency and accountability in the diamond sector in Zimbabwe.
In order to reduce the economic benefits gap between the rich and poor in natural resource management CRD is lobbying government to implement sound macro economic policies that promote the sovereign rights of communities to resources and also increasing public-private partnerships in the exploitation of natural resources.CRD is also advocating for an increased role of civil society to monitor public policy management in order to monitor corruption and abuse of power by the authorities.