Between extraction and protection: Public support for natural resource regulation and environmental governance across Africa, a continental analysis with West Africa as a case study

Godwin Abugatwin Abugbilla 

Natural resource extraction is central to development strategies across Africa, yet it generates persistent conflicts over environmental costs, benefit distribution, and governance legitimacy. Public attitudes toward this trade-off have remained largely unmeasured at the continental scale. This paper provides the first cross-national quantitative analysis of citizen preferences for environmental protection versus economic development and of public beliefs about the legitimacy of extraction governance across 39 African countries. Using the Afrobarometer Round 9 Merged Dataset (2021–2023), comprising 53,444 adult respondents, we operationalize four dimensions of extraction legitimacy and examine the development–environment trade-off using binary logistic regression with individual and regional covariates.
Continent-wide, 47.0% of respondents prioritize environmental protection, against 43.4% who prioritize economic development. The most decisive finding is a 35.1 percentage-point extraction legitimacy gap,  the difference between demand for stronger regulation (76.4%) and confidence that communities receive equitable benefits (41.3%), which is positive in every single country without exception. Climate change awareness is the strongest independent predictor of pro-environment preference (OR = 1.455, p < 0.001), outperforming education, income, gender, and regional affiliation. West Africa is simultaneously the most development-oriented sub-region and the most supportive of extractive regulation. Ghana registers 85.0% support for regulation alongside only 45.9% confidence in equitable benefit distribution.
African citizens broadly favor regulating extraction rather than ceasing it, while expressing widespread skepticism that existing governance delivers equitable outcomes. This is "regulate but reform." Orientation constitutes the dominant public political economy of natural resources on the continent. Climate change awareness must be systematically integrated into environmental governance communication strategies, and West Africa's development orientation demands policies that credibly link the governance reform of extractive industries to tangible community benefit delivery.