Digging to Development?
A Historical Look at Mining and Economic Development
Large scale mining has had serious environmental and social impacts on poor communities around the world. Yet international financial institutions such as the World Bank continue to promote mining in developing countries. They justify this in part on the apparent success rich countries like the US, Canada and Australia have had with mining. This report finds that mining was actually much less important in these countries than the World Bank claims and argues that these countries should not be used as models for developing countries today.