The International Bar Association took a resource-focused look at Africa’s commercial opportunities, but also associated challenges. Part one in a three-part round up from Seoul.
The 2019 International Bar Association (IBA) annual conference, in Seoul, Korea, may have fewer attendees from African jurisdictions than in previous years due to cost and distance, but those that have attended are enthusiastic participants, whether as officers of the Africa Regional Forum, as representatives of their respective committees, or as law firm delegates.
Some were all three; Alan Keep, Bowmans’ managing partner and chair of its management strategy sub-committee, chaired an interesting session on law firm management, accompanied by senior partner Robert Legh and five others – including Kenya managing partner Richard Harney, demonstrating the unified approach that Bowmans has cultivated in recent years.
Also present were their colleagues, from Bowmans’ Ethiopian ally Aman Assefa & Associates Law Office, which sent two partners, including managing partner Aman Assefa Adhana, and Udo Udoma & Belo-Osagie, one of the one of the oldest and largest commercial law partnerships in Nigeria, which sent three partners – Yinka Edu, a banking lawyer, disputes specialist Festus Onyia and IP partner Mena Ajakpovi, neatly illustrating the span of full service work that many other African firms also aim to attract.
Nigerians attending the conference, supported, by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), were a conspicuous and welcome presence at both professional and social events, aided by preparatory work between Nigeria and South Korea, led by NBA secretary-general Jonathan Gunu Taidi and his predecessor Lawal Rabana SAN, together with NBA staff
In a statement, Nigerian Bar Association president Paul Usoro SAN said the NBA had intervened and sought “engagement with the South Korean Embassy, so that our members who have registered for the IBA conference would have no visa challenge’’.
They were welcomed to the event by no less a person than IBA president, Horacio Bernardes Neto, who referenced his own attendance at the NBA’s annual general conference, in August, where he was the first IBA leader to attend the event and gave a keynote speech on rule of law issues.
The IBA will be holding an Anti-Corruption Africa Conference in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2020, as part of that wider outreach, ALB understands, while also seeking to diversify its events from London and Paris to include more regional content, more regularly.
June 2019, for example, saw the IBA visit South Africa, where Neto, and IBA executive director, Mark Ellis, visited the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, co-founded by the IBA and Open Society Initiative in 2005.
Neto, the first Brazilian to hold that office, said in his welcome remarks to delegates in Seoul that he wanted to see the number of Africans engaged in the IBA to increase, whether individually or collectively, as well as taking part in the IBA’s structures.
He also flagged IBA efforts to increase diversity and inclusion within its own structures and proceedings, with the creation of a Diversity and Inclusion Council, and themed programming within the Korean event, as well developing his message about the importance of the rule of law.
CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNTIES
Within the programme itself, there was much focus on the sectoral opportunities that Africa has to offer, not least oil and gas. A session on “challenges and opportunities” in that sector showed there were plenty of either on offer. Peter Muliisa, of the Ugandan National Oil Company (UNOC), noted low levels of consumption of both resources, saying that in sub-Saharan Africa, this was particularly low; but there were countries like Nigeria, Angola and Mozambique where resources were particularly high.
That, he said, “speaks a lot to the development and growth of economies, and to growth and consumption going forward”, adding that “there are a wealth of opportunities”, as a result, with almost every country in sub-Saharan Africa setting up a state-owned oil company – although the absence of refinery exploitation on a par with other oil-producing countries was challenging, for example – and he outlined his own country’s energy sector fundamentals.
Noting that, in common with other African NOCs, funding remained an issue and debt remained a bar to progress, while political constraints, price sensitivity and regulatory risks are also factors, he illustrated that the path to success was by no means easy, not least because, as Italian in-house lawyer Marco Bollini, of Eni, pointed out, African jurisdictions need to focus on improving their legal frameworks, so as to ensure that the continent fulfills its true potential.
“If you look at local markets, where there is good news for each country in terms of possible power generation – we need to find a way to devise instruments” to ensure that infrastructure is paid for and energy products are supplied from such projects. Non-payment and security for payments are issues, he informed his audience.
Ozim Ifeoma Obasi, geomarket counsel for East Africa at Baker Hughes, outlined how collaborative approaches to stakeholders could help achieve such successes, particularly in working together to implement successful local content regimes, such as in Nigeria, Angola, Ghana and others.
Improved in-country presence, local participation and manpower, and an eye for sustainable development, all mattered too.
Obasi also addressed the need to reconcile seemingly opposed legal interests on the part of investors and governments, indigenous and host communities alike, through encouraging the reconciliation of opposed interests and the fostering of mutual ones, by being cooperative.
There was, noted Muliisa, good news in that joint ventures, pan-African investment, and strategic partnerships were addressing those issues. Ghana and Angola were singled out as role models, while aggressive exploration, significant oil finds, improved refinery capacity, and supportive infrastructure projects were all assisting the development of the industry.
Realism, risk mitigation, and a tempered approach to resource nationalism and commercial interests all meant that the industry was “an opportunity for Africa” as a result, suggested Muliisa. The interest in the room to seize the same was obvious.