Mining Revenues for Territorial Competitiveness: An Elusive Future? The case of Rural Towns in Southern Peru

Taking advantage of mining canon and royalties (C&R), local governments make efforts to improve the ‘quality of life’ in their jurisdictions and to generate employment opportunities for the present and future generations. The objective of this research is to describe and analyze local economic development initiatives undertaken by the rural local governments of Torata and Ite in order to use mining canon and royalties (C&R) sustainably. The analysis is made using the perspective on sustainable development in economies that depends on natural resources, and territorial based rural development’s strategies and approaches. A general conclusion is that LG of Torata and Ite are in a learning process of local economic development where policies, strategies, approaches and projects still need to be enhanced under a territorial competitiveness perspective in order to use mining canon and royalties (C&R) sustainably and to hinder economic distortions generated by resource abundance.