Imagine you're the landlord of a prime piece of real estate in the middle of a booming city. You lease it out to a tenant for 25 years at a flat monthly rate, with no right to revisit the rent based on market conditions. The tenant then builds a luxury apartment complex, earns millions each year, while you collect the same modest sum for decades. Worse still, during the lease, you can neither live in the property, resell it, nor use it to raise money.
If this sounds like a ridiculous deal, it's because it is.
Yet, this is precisely how many African governments have structured their agreements with multinational mining companies through mineral concessions.