Natural resource endowments such as oil, gas, and minerals can serve as potent drivers of development. Global demand for scarce natural resources is mounting rapidly. Industry experts argue that we are in the midst of a “super cycle” of commodity prices, driven by demand from fast-growing emerging economies. Natural resource extraction is capitalintensive, with annual global investments approaching $1 trillion, hence offering the potential for rapid infrastructure development and structural transformation in developing economies. Riches from the sector promise to be massive, with resource rents, that is, the difference between revenues and extraction cost, estimated at about $4 trillion annually, or 7 percent of global GDP. More than 50 World Bank client countries— representing more than 1.5 billion people and such diverse settings as Afghanistan, Brazil, Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, and Mongolia—are currently characterized as “resource-dependent.” Nonrenewable natural resources are disproportionately important to poor and fragile countries, as typically they are their main endowment and revenue source...