FEATURED HIGHLIGHT: Gideon Sarpong - Missing Gold: How Ghana lost over $6 billion in gold export revenue to major trading partners

Gideon Sarpong writes about Ghana's reported losses due to gold smuggling.

"Ghana, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone. In a bleak partnership, privation and natural resources like gold or oil go together in West Africa. It was economist Paul Collier who first identified what he called the “resource curse.” It was his analysis of the paradox of plenty that led me to focus on Bonsaso, a remote town located in the Western Region of Ghana.

What struck me most about this town was the level of deprivation and impoverishment. The young men who could not withstand the laborious task of small-scale mining had all abandoned their home in search of elusive jobs in the major cities. Left behind are elderly and recalcitrant small-scale miners determined to plunder land, water and vegetation to earn a living." Click here for the full article.