In Afghanistan, competition for natural resources underlies many local and regional conflicts. At the same time, natural resources offer Afghanistan a critical source of state revenues, as international aid diminishes. In the context of the withdrawal of ISAF/NATO forces and decreasing donor aid, establishing a pragmatic and sensible approach to managing natural resources will be vital. Renard Sexton, a visiting scholar with the Program on Crisis, Conflict, and Cooperation at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, will discuss his research on seven cases of local conflicts throughout Afghanistan driven or exacerbated by issues surrounding natural resources.
Renard Sexton is an expert on conflict, natural resources, and international affairs across the developing world, including South Asia, Latin America, and West and Central Africa. He has undertaken fieldwork on three continents, including spending significant time in Ecuador and Afghanistan, and shorter stints in Sierra Leone, India, and Haiti.
Before coming to Afghanistan, he worked for Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano in Quito, Ecuador, and before that the UN Environment Programme’s Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch, focused on West and Central Africa. He has also been a contributor to the New York Times’ blog FiveThirtyEight, the Guardian, the Independent, Foreign Policy, and URD’s Humanitaires en mouvement.
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