Countries endowed with non-renewable natural resources (NRNR) are faced with substantial opportunities, but also great risks. Get the choice of industrial and economic policy, their sequencing, and alignment with global value chains right; support this with fiscal prudence, adequate institutional capacity and civil society participation; and NRNR revenues can be a force for sustained economic growth and social development. Get the policies, sequencing and alignment wrong; and ignore issues of absorptive capacity and good governance; and international experience tell us that a 'boom' in NRNR revenues can become a 'curse', depressing economic growth, worsening poverty and increasing political instability.