Inclusive growth, governance of natural resources and sustainable development are elements of a vision for a prosperous, thriving African future. African states with established, as well as, nascent natural resource-based economies are increasingly supporting and implementing new governance mechanisms designed to capture greater wealth for the state that in part may be invested into local societies. The African Mining Vision (AMV) and Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) are two examples among several. African states with resource endowments must be strategic when developing policy and should look to other states for positive lessons. This paper will analyze Qatar as a partner for African business and trade development. It is an example of a single commodity natural resourcebased economy that has accelerated its development program and is growing in global influence as a result of a novel foreign policy supported by strategic trade and investment maneuvers. More about Qatar further on.

Resource-rich African states have revived an old model of utilizing their natural resources, extractive industries as well as land and water, to generate foreign direct investment to produce government revenues that may be used to modernize infrastructure and support social and economic institutions that will improve the quality of life for current and future generations. This is part of a continent wide movement to achieve “An integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa, driven by its own citizens and representing a dynamic force in the global arena.” Resource-rich states are exhibiting a renewed sense of agency in attempts to develop equitable partnerships with emerging powers from the Global South. Most of the research focuses on China, Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa (BRICS) leading other ‘middle powers’ in engaging African business and trade opportunities. This paper focuses on the potential for Qatar to engage Africa for mutually beneficial trade and investment opportunities.

“States are what they do;” they are socially constructed entities that are continually evolving as new bureaucracies are created to manage new tasks. These “changes in function change the nature of the state.” Constructivists assert that states’ interests or preferences evolve as the product of state actions, how it is acted upon and the circumstances of the international environment. State preferences are influenced and constituted by “social norms, culturally determined roles and rules and historically contingent discourse.”