Prior to doing work on extractive industries, I spent a number of years working on non-governmental organizations and their role in development. One of the recurring critical observations made on non-governmental organizations, including by their own governments, was precisely that. These are projects, but then when the NGO goes, the project falls apart and the effects are not sustained over time. It seems to me that as one thinks about the relationships between extractive industries and development, there are a lot of lessons that can already be drawn from this earlier commitment to NGO-led forms of development.
What might be done? I think there is a series of issues to do with looking for instruments that can foster the diversification of the economy. Back to that—instruments that would separate the flow of investment resources from the extractive industry—it strikes me that there is also a lot to be learned from the Ford Foundation's experience with community development foundations. One can imagine the use of surplus revenue coming from extractive industries and being invested in community foundations, which could have a national orientation or a regional, sub-national orientation, that would operate independently in sectors such as investment in new enterprise possibilities, and so on and so forth.