Accounting for Mineral Resources in Tanzania: Data Challenges and Implications for Resource Management Policy

There is a new line of thinking in development and growth theory demonstrating that sustainable development requires non-declining per capita wealth (Hamilton K, Clemmens M. World Bank Econ Rev 13(2):336–356, 1999; Lange G-M. Environ Res Econ 29:257–283, 2004; Lange G-M. Introducing environmental sustainability into the Uganda system of national accounts. Draft Final Report, ENR Sector Working Group, 2005; World Bank. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006). In this conceptualization, wealth is defined in a very broad sense to include produced, natural and human (including social) capital. The challenge posed by this approach to growth and development is for economies to manage their asset portfolios so as to realize the objectives of sustainability (non-declining per capita wealth). This requires economies to have the ability to monitor total per capita wealth and analyse changes in this indicator (e.g. see Lange G-M. Environ Res Econ 29:257–283, 2004). It is well known that the current System of National Accounts (SNA) does not adequately represent natural (and human) capital stocks, and the consequences of this omission (neglect) have been well documented (e.g. see Hamilton K, Clemmens M. World Bank Econ Rev 13(2):336–356, 1999; Lange G-M. Environ Res Econ 29:257–283, 2004; Lange G-M. Introducing environmental sustainability into the Uganda system of national accounts. Draft Final Report, ENR Sector Working Group, 2005; World Bank. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The World Bank, Washington, DC, 2006). However, there presently exists a standardized framework (and methodologies) for constructing environmental accounts, called the System of Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounts, or SEEA (United Nations, Commission of the European Communities, International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, and World Bank (2003) Handbook for integrated environmental and economic accounting. United Nations, New York), which extends the asset boundary of the SNA to include all natural resources, recording asset values, depletion and improvements in the stock of natural capital (Lange G-M. Environ Res Econ 29:257–283, 2004). The results from implementing the SEEA could potentially be used to better represent natural assets in the SNA.