In Geneva, on 11 December 2013, UNEP and the World Bank co-hosted a full day expert meeting on geo-mapping extractive resources in fragile states, with a specific focus on the g7+ countries – a voluntary grouping of 18 fragile and conflictaffected states. These countries boast some of the most abundant reserves of natural resources that if managed well have the potential to accelerate growth and development. However, while many of the g7+ countries are rich in natural resources, they face challenges ensuring that the exploitation of their resource wealth results in multiple development benefits, including revenues, jobs and infrastructure.

Following a direct request from the g7+ secretariat, UNEP and the World Bank are working together to produce a series of interactive maps to help fragile states strengthen information transparency on resource contract boundaries and ownership and to help visualize interactions between resource contracts and different kinds of environmental, social and natural hazard risks. The mapping platform also provides a common and accurate pool of resource contract information to all stakeholders to help equalize information asymmetries and inform expectations. Efforts are now underway to finalize the first three prototypes maps for Afghanistan, DR Congo, and Sierra Leone.

More information
cassidy.travis@unep.org