The Natural Resource Charter is a set of principles for governments and societies on how to best harness the opportunities created by extractive resources for development. It outlines tools and policy options designed to avoid the mismanagement of diminishing natural riches and ensure their ongoing benefits.

The charter is organized around 12 core precepts offering guidance on key decisions governments face, beginning with whether to extract resources and ending with how generated revenue can produce maximum good for citizens. It is not a recipe or blueprint for the policies and institutions countries must build, but rather a set of principles to guide decision making processes.

First launched in 2010 at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the charter was written by an independent group of practitioners and academics under the governance of an oversight board composed of distinguished international figures with first-hand experience of the challenges faced by resource-rich countries. A second edition was launched at the 2014 Natural Resource Charter Conference in Oxford, England.

Then in 2016, following government and civil society demand for a practical way to apply the charter, NRGI launched the Natural Resource Charter Benchmarking Framework. Drawing on the policy options and practical advice of the Natural Resource Charter, the framework contains a series of questions that government officials, concerned citizens and the international community can use to assess government decision-making against the global best practices.