Management Board of the ALSF (from left to right) Stephen Karangizi, Director of the ALSF; Eve Sinare, Tanzania; Sixtus Vusi, Chairman of the Management Board, Cameroon; Seward Cooper, Liberia; and Pim de Keizer, Netherlands.

The Management Board of the African Legal Support Facility (ALSF) met in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire from April 11 - 12, 2016 to review the 2016 strategic direction and priorities of the ALSF and also discuss key issues and events that will be convened at the sidelines of the 2016 Annual Meetings of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in May 2016, in Lusaka, Zambia.

The Management Board, which is responsible for the effective running of the ALSF's operations met in their capacity to steer the Facilities interventions to ensure that they are robust and agile enough to meet the demands and needs of African governments.

"This is an opportunity for us review and deliberate on ALSF interventions, which have the potential to contribute to development in Africa," said the Board Members.

For his part, ALSF Director, Stephen Karangizi, thanked the Management Board members for sparing their time to provide and share expertise at a time when the demand for the ALSF's services is increasing.

"In the context where many African governments are seeking to expand their resource base in order to deliver on much needed infrastructure for sustained growth, we anticipate that there will be an increased demand for our services necessitating a proactive approach," ALSF Director further said.

The Board also took the opportunity to discuss the planned side event titled "State Equity Participation, now what?" that will be held at the sidelines of the 2016 Annual Meetings of AfDB in Lusaka, Zambia on May 25, 2016. Board members expressed their enthusiasm for the upcoming event, which aims to highlight the renewed debate on the risks and opportunities of state equity participation in PPPs and natural resource projects.

Commenting further on the upcoming event, the Board members underscored that time has come for the Facility to provide a platform for stakeholders to analyse state equity participation in all sectors through a legal lens.

The ALSF, hosted by the AfDB, has been supporting African governments in the negotiation of complex commercial transactions since 2010. To date, the Facility has cumulatively approved 88 operations totaling US $36.05 million spread across Infrastructure related interventions, Natural resource & extractive industries management, Debt management and Capacity Building interventions.

The Management Board is a statutory body of the ALSF that meets twice a year. The Members of the Board are drawn from diverse backgrounds in order to effectively direct the work of the Facility in its effort to deliver timely legal advice and technical assistance to African governments.

To that end, the ALSF's long-term goal is to ensure that African governments have the legal capacity to negotiate and conclude equitable and sustainable agreements that deliver maximum economic value to African countries and protect their sovereign rights.

The five members are Vusi Sixtus Ibrahim, Chairman (Cameroon) Seward Cooper (Liberia), Eve Sinare (Tanzania), Pim de Keizer (Netherlands) and Amadou Dieng (Senegal).