Total natural resources rents (% of GDP) - Country Ranking - Africa

Definition: Total natural resources rents are the sum of oil rents, natural gas rents, coal rents (hard and soft), mineral rents, and forest rents.

Source: Estimates based on sources and methods described in "The Changing Wealth of Nations: Measuring Sustainable Development in the New Millennium" (World Bank, 2011).

See also: Thematic map, Time series comparison

Find indicator:
Rank Country Value Year
1 Congo 47.87 2019
2 Libya 44.64 2019
3 Equatorial Guinea 30.91 2019
4 Eritrea 26.96 2011
5 Angola 26.19 2019
6 Chad 21.12 2019
7 Gabon 20.86 2019
8 Algeria 16.42 2019
9 Somalia 13.49 1990
10 Sierra Leone 13.21 2019
11 Mauritania 12.81 2019
12 Liberia 12.43 2019
13 Mozambique 11.31 2019
14 Dem. Rep. Congo 10.81 2019
15 Burundi 9.21 2019
16 Nigeria 9.20 2019
17 Guinea-Bissau 8.61 2019
18 Central African Republic 8.35 2019
19 Ghana 7.79 2019
20 Zambia 6.43 2019
21 Uganda 6.12 2019
22 Sudan 5.84 2019
23 Cameroon 5.53 2019
24 Niger 5.20 2019
25 Malawi 5.14 2019
26 Egypt 4.98 2019
27 Ethiopia 4.38 2019
28 Burkina Faso 4.19 2019
29 Guinea 4.11 2019
30 South Africa 3.94 2019
31 Madagascar 3.79 2019
32 Togo 3.22 2019
33 Rwanda 3.18 2019
34 Lesotho 3.05 2019
35 Eswatini 2.97 2019
36 Zimbabwe 2.50 2019
37 Côte d'Ivoire 2.48 2019
38 The Gambia 2.32 2019
39 Tunisia 2.17 2019
40 Tanzania 2.04 2019
41 Benin 2.03 2019
42 Mali 1.79 2019
43 São Tomé and Principe 1.76 2019
44 Senegal 1.29 2019
45 Comoros 1.23 2019
46 Namibia 1.17 2019
47 Kenya 1.05 2019
48 Botswana 0.66 2019
49 Morocco 0.32 2019
50 Cabo Verde 0.31 2019
51 Djibouti 0.29 2019
52 Seychelles 0.09 2019
53 Mauritius 0.00 2019

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Development Relevance: Accounting for the contribution of natural resources to economic output is important in building an analytical framework for sustainable development. In some countries earnings from natural resources, especially from fossil fuels and minerals, account for a sizable share of GDP, and much of these earnings come in the form of economic rents - revenues above the cost of extracting the resources. Natural resources give rise to economic rents because they are not produced. For produced goods and services competitive forces expand supply until economic profits are driven to zero, but natural resources in fixed supply often command returns well in excess of their cost of production. Rents from nonrenewable resources - fossil fuels and minerals - as well as rents from overharvesting of forests indicate the liquidation of a country's capital stock. When countries use such rents to support current consumption rather than to invest in new capital to replace what is being used up, they are, in effect, borrowing against their future.

Limitations and Exceptions: This definition of economic rent differs from that used in the System of National Accounts, where rents are a form of property income, consisting of payments to landowners by a tenant for the use of the land or payments to the owners of subsoil assets by institutional units permitting them to extract subsoil deposits.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: The estimates of natural resources rents are calculated as the difference between the price of a commodity and the average cost of producing it. This is done by estimating the world price of units of specific commodities and subtracting estimates of average unit costs of extraction or harvesting costs (including a normal return on capital). These unit rents are then multiplied by the physical quantities countries extract or harvest to determine the rents for each commodity as a share of gross domestic product (GDP).

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual