Local Content in Developing and Middle-Income Countries: Towards a More Holistic Strategy

Abstract

This paper introduces a collection of manuscripts compiled for a special section of The Extractive Industries and Society on local content. Our introduction paper situates these pieces in the wider literature and policy debates on local content in the extractive industries in developing economies. Local content requirements (LCRs), which seek to create value locally, tend to be driven by state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and other agencies that work alongside multinational companies (MNCs), civil society organizations and international institutions in the mining and oil and gas sectors. For states, the establishment of SOEs and other government bodies needed to implement local content is a key to building a robust indigenous technical base for, and developing domestic linkages to, the extractive industries. The article concludes by prescribing recommendations on how to develop LCRs that create public value for a diverse group of stakeholders linked to the extractive industries.