The African Legal Support Facility (ALSF), on Monday 6 and Tuesday 7 June 2011 in Lisbon held two major meetings: the Management Board meeting and the Governing Council meeting. The ALSF meetings were part of the activities taking place during the AfDB's 2011 Annual Meetings in Lisbon, and were an opportunity to discuss issues related to the ALSF's activities missions and membership.
During its sessions, the Management Board members adopted a Resolution approving a grant to the government of Liberia to assist the country in the negotiations of a series of agricultural concession contracts.
The Governing Council meeting, chaired by Vice-president Kordje Bedoumra, took stock of the 2010 annual report of the Facility and encouraged Management to pursue efforts to sensitize African countries victims of vulture funds. In that regard, the meeting appealed to the importance of regional member countries to make contact with the ALSF and benefit from its assistance, in order to create conditions for them to benefit from debt relief initiatives, "in line with the main spirit of the Agreement establishing the ALSF."
"Since it became operational, ninety per cent of the requests sent to the Facility by States are related to assistance on contract negotiations," said Mamoudou Deme, ALSF Acting Director.
Mr. Deme recalled that the Facility had various operations in its pipeline of projects for 2011, including a regional project in Sub-Saharan Africa, projects in Liberia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, and Guinea in the mining sector, Niger, Rwanda in the context of an energy PPP project and Tanzania.
It would also be recalled that the ALSF Management Board recently also approved a grant to finance capacity building in Tunisia, as well as the appointment of an international legal counsel to assist the country to develop a legal framework for stolen assets recovery.
The creation of the Facility was officially approved by the Board of Directors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) on April 30 2008. Formally established in June 2009, the organization became operational in March 2010.
