It's an all too common predicament – a government discovers massive reserves of oil or another natural resource, and proceeds to fritter away the money. Whether that’s through corruption or ill-judged government schemes, poor spending choices seem to go hand in hand with massive windfalls. Here are the cautionary tales of nations that wasted huge payouts from natural resources. All dollar values in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

The tiny Pacific Island nation of Nauru boasted the world's highest GDP per capita during the 1970s thanks to its bountiful phosphate reserves. Flush with cash, the government embarked on an almighty spending spree, splurging on everything from aircraft to luxury hotels. A trust fund was set up, which was estimated to be worth AU$1.7 billion (US$1.2 bn/£894m) at its peak.

When the island's phosphate reserves ran out in the 1980s, Nauru was drowning in debt and severe austerity measures followed, though they didn't stop the nation going bankrupt in the early 2000s. Since then, the country has been reliant on Australian aid in return for housing an asylum centre for refugees. Mired in poverty and threatened by climate change, it faces a very bleak future indeed.

The discovery of colossal quantities of diamonds in Zimbabwe's Marange fields back in 2006 should have worked wonders for the country's battered economy. Instead, the find was characterised by severe human rights abuses, wholesale looting and widespread corruption.

Human rights organisation Global Witness alleges that the state earned $2.5 billion (£1.9bn) from exports of the precious stones but just $300 million (£230m) made it into public funds, leaving $2.2 billion (£1.7bn) unaccounted for. In fact, the late President Mugabe himself claimed that a staggering $15 billion (£11.5bn) of the country's diamond wealth had gone missing, although he later claimed he was misled by officials.

In 2012, Salva Kiir (pictured front), the president of newly independent South Sudan, accused scores of public officials of stealing $4 billion (£3.1bn) from the nation's coffers. Almost 100% of the country's budget derives from oil.

Rampant corruption aside, much of South Sudan's oil wealth has been spent on the country's military. Indeed, a paucity of its riches have ended up benefiting the people, though the nation does have a (modest) sovereign wealth fund.

Staying in Africa, Chad earned a total of $13 billion (£10bn) in oil revenues from 2003 to 2014. Ignoring advice from organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the country's government abandoned plans to set up a sovereign fund and opted to spend the cash instead.

As much as $4 billion (£3bn) was allocated to the military and splashed on arms while the government reneged on promises to invest in education and healthcare. Needless to say, the country remains one of the poorest on the planet.

The government of Equatorial Guinea reaped $45 billion (£34.5bn) in oil revenues from 2000 to 2013, making the central African nation one of the richest on the continent in terms of GDP per capita, which on the face of it seems all well and good.

Except the money was more or less wasted on unnecessary infrastructure projects that lined the pockets of corrupt officials and have done very little to improve the lives of the country's hard-up citizens. Healthcare and education remain drastically underfunded and poverty is all pervasive.

Yet another of the many victims of the so-called resource curse, the oil-rich Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago amassed a bumper $90 billion (£68.9bn) in petroleum revenue from 1999 to 2016 according to Dr Roger Hosein, a respected economist at the University of the West Indies.

Hosein has stated that, out of the $90 billion (£68.9bn) collected, only $5 billion (£3.8bn) was allocated to the nation's Heritage and Stabilization Fund, while $8 billion (£6.1bn) was placed in international currency reserves. That leaves a discrepancy of $77 billion (£59bn), which Hosein believes was “poorly spent” and didn't help move the country away from its reliance on oil.

Having put all its eggs in one basket, Algeria is heavily dependent on oil. Hydrocarbons represent 95% of its exports and 75% of government revenues according to the World Bank. Though the nation's reserves have generated plenty of cash, the bulk of the proceeds has been effectively squandered.

Algeria had currency reserves of $179 billion (£137bn) in 2014 but the figure has since dwindled to $79.8 billion (£61.1bn), according to the Bank of Algeria. Instead of using the $99.2 billion (£76bn) to alleviate poverty, diversify the economy and prepare for the future, the money has been poorly managed with much of it spent on subsidies and offsetting lower oil prices.

As of January 2019, Azerbaijan's State Oil Fund has received a huge $138.2 billion (£105.9bn) from the country's main oil reservoir, the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG). Yet despite the massive windfall, ordinary citizens aren't reaping the benefits.

Of that money, $100 billion (£76.6bn) has been spent but the country has very little to show for it, apart from a number of flashy infrastructure projects and glitzy skyscrapers in the capital Baku. Poverty remains widespread, unemployment is at its highest rate in 20 years and social services and healthcare are abysmal.

The Canadian province of Alberta generated an estimated CA$190 billion (US$145bn/£111bn) in non-renewable resource revenues from 1980 to 2013, with much of the money emanating from the province's Athabasca oil sands, which contain enormous deposits of bitumen or extremely heavy crude oil.

The Alberta Heritage Savings Trust Fund (HSTF) was set up in 1976 to save for a rainy day, bolster the province's economy and improve the life of its citizens, yet in 2013 the value of the fund was just CA$17.3 billion (US$13.2bn/£10.1bn). Instead of putting the revenue cash aside, successive Albertan governments channelled most of the money into capital projects and operational expenses. 

Australia could well have boasted a sovereign fund similar to that of Norway or Kuwait had successive governments ring-fenced the extra cash received as a result of the country's mining boom. From 2003 to 2017, the boom boosted the Aussie economy to the tune of AU$290 billion (US$199bn/£152bn), according to a study by forecasting firm Macroeconomics.

Instead of banking the additional cash, sucessive governments used the money to fund tax cuts, stimulus spending and handouts. Ironically, the Australian government advised East Timor in 2005 to set up a sovereign wealth fund following Norway's example. If the Aussie powers that be had followed their own advice, the country would be sitting on a huge pile of cash.

Take a look at a prediction of the world's richest countries in 2030

Oil reserves in the North Sea have played a major part in the UK's financial fortunes. When production skyrocketed in the 1980s, the extra tax revenue from the commodity bolstered the pound, which had the undesirable consequence of making British industry uncompetitive. Instead of using the money to modernise UK manufacturing, the Thatcher government spent it on tax cuts.

Both the Thatcher administration and the governments that have followed failed to establish a sovereign wealth fund like Norway's. If the UK had done so and the $391.7 billion (£300bn) received up to 2014 had been invested wisely, the fund might well have inflated to over $1 trillion (£850bn) argues Sukhdev Johal, an accounting professor at Queen Mary University of London.

A report published in 2018 by the Shehu Musa Yar'Adua Foundation and authored by a former World Bank vice president and other esteemed analysts revealed that Nigeria wasted a total of $1 trillion (£766bn) earned from the five major oil booms that took place from 1970 to 2014.

The money, which was either brazenly stolen or misspent, could have gone a long way towards diversifying the economy and making a real difference to the lives of ordinary Nigerians, many of whom live hand to mouth and struggle to find work.

Discover more about why oil- and gas-rich countries need to change

The textbook example of how not to spend bewildering sums of oil money, Venezuela has gone from relative riches to rags despite having the largest proven reserves of the commodity in the world. From 1999 to 2013, the country's far-left government pulled in revenues of $1.3 trillion (£996bn) on the back of its prized resource.

This vast fortune was all but wasted. Grossly mismanaged, much of the cash disappeared due to corruption, while a significant proportion was funnelled into ill-judged welfare programmes. In spite of the eye-watering amount of money spent, poverty is rife in the country, which is in dire straits financially and socially.

Venezuela is one of several countries that used to be rich but are now poor