This chapter explores the extent to which Africa's extraordinary wealth of natural resources has been tied in disastrous ways to global trade. In the years immediately preceding the global financial crisis, many economists advised African countries to reap the benefits of rising prices for primary commodities. The hope was that accruing surpluses could help Africa generate sustainable development. Such prescriptions, however, ignored the negative effects of dependence on resource exports. The ways in which such resources were marketized contributed to state weakness when in fact only strong states could manage them for effective long-term growth. Even the World Bank has recognized that strengthening and reforming resource-rich African states is the key to their development. The chapter calls for industrially diversified growth which offers wider employment and the potential for increasing-returns.