Paper short abstract:

Extractive Industries have become among the emerging economic sectors in Ethiopia, bringing a new dimension of contestation over ownership, entitlement, and management of natural resources.

Paper long abstract:

Ethiopia has recently expanded its engagement in extractive industries by granting concessions to foreign and domestic companies for oil, gas, and mineral explorations and extractions. Although it is considered as part of the plan to diversify the economy as part of the ambitious Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) that was launched in 2010, the extractive industry has now become a major contested terrain among different actors with regard to the ownership, entitlement, and management of natural resources. For example, a series of conflict, strike, and mass movement has ravaged the operation of MIDROC Gold Plc. that has dispossessed thousands of local people in southern Ethiopia. This paper focuses on the Adola Gold Mining (state owned) and Laga-Dambi MIDROC Gold mining (privately owned), and investigates contestations over land right, corporate social responsibility and subsequent violent conflicts in Oromia regional state, Ethiopia. The paper further probes into the dynamics of state consolidation of power in Ethiopia's marginal region, and argues that extractive industries further marginalize the society while strengthening state power in the periphery.