Natural Resources can play a big role in developing a country. Sierra Leone was one of those countries that were negatively affected by its natural resources. Sierra Leone happened to have many diamonds. This attracted many other countries. Sierra Leone was taken over by Great Britain. Great Britain caused a lot of trouble for the Africans. They took all their rights away from them. They also caused a civil war in Africa in which many people died. Diamonds didn’t bring much help for Sierra Leone.
Great Britain was a country which benefited from its natural resources. They had a lot of iron and coal. These resources were used to power machines in factories which allowed for products to be made faster. This opened more jobs for people. With products being made faster they were able to sell more. This gave a boost to Britain’s economy. It also brought child labor to factories. The benefit to great Britain’s economy caused suffrage to the children. This issue is still controversial today.
Natural resources can be both blessing and hindrances. They can be good and bad because if you have a lot of good natural resources in your country, other countries might try to take over so they can have all the natural resources. For example, Africa had many natural resources, like diamonds, and the Europeans saw that and decided to imperialize Africa.
Having natural resources does kind of make countries unequal because if a country has natural resources they will probably flourish but a country that doesn't they will most likely not be as successful. But also if a weak country has natural resources, a stronger country that doesn't will try to do whatever they can to get those resources, like the Europeans.
I think that inequality is inevitable because not all countries have resources that will help them flourish. So some countries would become more powerful than others and they would try to keep it that way by colonizing weaker countries.
