The aim of this work is to analyse the conditional effects of natural resource dependence on human capital and the quality of institutions on economic growth. Unlike most previous work, which only considers each of these interactive effects separately, this article combines the interactive effects between natural resources and institutions on the one hand and natural resources and human capital on the other in the same model. To do this, we estimated an Autoregressive Distributed Lag model on a sample of 29 countries, in which there was an average level of dependency of 19.53% from 2000 to 2015. Considering the interaction between natural resources and institutional capital on the one hand and natural resources and human capital on the other shows that the coupe human capital-corruption is an appropriate lever to take advantage of natural resources in Africa countries. These results suggest that African countries must simultaneously strengthen investments in human capital and fight against corruption to turn the curse of natural resources into a blessing. •Simultaneous introduction into the analysis of the curse of natural resources, institutions and human capital as channels through which natural resources affect growth.•The coupe human capital-corruption is an appropriate lever to take advantage of natural resources in Africa countries.