The African Legal Support Mechanism (ALSF) organized two workshops in Ouagadougou on best management practices for exploration and oil and mining contracts.
ALSF is an international institution hosted by the African Development Bank.
Indeed, the discovery of large-scale oil and mineral deposits tends to feed national visions of economic prosperity and development.
However, these dreams are often subject to a rude awakening, namely the financial and commercial challenges associated with transforming underground assets into financially successful extractive projects.
The first workshop was organized from 12 to 15 December 2017 on “Negotiation and Management of Exploration and Exploration Contracts”. The second workshop, held from 18 to 22 December, focused on the development of structured mining projects.
It is widely accepted that the challenges associated with the exploitation of newly discovered mineral and petroleum resources are closely related to technical and engineering issues. However, ALSF’s recent experience in the Bank’s Regional Member States (RMCs) shows that negotiation skills and a good understanding of international financing are often the missing elements that delay or even derail the development of these resources.
As part of its mandate to develop sustainable legal capacity in the African region, the ALSF workshop aimed to promote the efficient structuring of mining investments, as well as the optimal negotiation and management of oil contracts.
Both events hosted 54 participants, including ministerial representatives from Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
