Thank you for the question.
There's no doubt that resource extraction can generate revenues that can be used well by a developing country. This is something that has been touted by CIDA, and in fact by the Prime Minister, as sort of the wisdom of relying on resource extraction as a development model. The Prime Minister, at the Summit of the Americas, just recently touted Canada as a great example of this.
But we also know that great destruction can go along with resource extraction. In Canada we have laws that, though imperfect, do provide a certain degree of safeguards, which a lot of developing countries don't have. We also know there are a lot of ills associated with development based on resource extraction. Just to name a few, there are corruption, conflict, HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, alcoholism, conflict within communities...and the list goes on. In fact, we've seen this in Canada in many aboriginal communities as well.
What is needed is a better understanding of the two sides of resource extraction as a development strategy, and effective ways to minimize the harm while maximizing the benefits. One potential way to maximize the benefits would be to improve the regulatory framework in a developing country to regulate the foreign mining companies as well as the domestic ones. CIDA has been involved in this in the past, for instance, in Colombia. However, the new regulations were very much in favour of the mining industry, especially the Canadian mining industry. In fact, the rate of royalties going to the government went down. There have been many criticisms of collusion between CIDA and Canadian mining companies against the interests of people in developing countries.
There's also this facile argument that more revenues means fighting poverty. This often is not the case. I've mentioned that corruption is one possible side effect. Just because a government has more revenue does not mean it chooses to use it for poverty alleviation, so any argument that's based on that actually partakes in a leap of logic.