OREANDA-NEWS. The African Legal Support Facility (ALSF) Management Board is pleased to announce that Seward Cooper will become the Chairman of its Board on June 30, 2016. At its meeting on May 22, 2015 on the sidelines of the African Development Bank Annual Meetings, the Board also paid tribute to the outgoing Chairman, Sixtus Vusi, and Board Member Eve Sinare, whose tenure will end on June 29, 2016

The ALSF Director, Stephen Karangizi, congratulated the new chairman on his appointment and thanked the outgoing members for their valuable service and commitment to the ALSF. 

For his part, Seward Cooper stated that he looks forward to his new role and looks forward to providing the necessary leadership to the ALSF as it undergoes a Medium Term Review of its current 2013–2017 Medium Term Strategy. 

Seward Cooper is an international and corporate lawyer and serves as Legal Advisor to the President of Liberia. He also served as first counsel and Head of Unit for Good Governance at the AfDB and co-led the conception and drafting of the Agreement for the Establishment of the ALSF.

The ALSF is a public international institution hosted by the African Development Bank (AfDB). The Facility is dedicated to providing legal advice and capacity building to African countries on complex commercial contract negotiations, creditor litigation and other related sovereign transactions.

Since 2010, the Facility has provided advice to governments on transactions valued at US $30 billion in over 36 African countries. The ALSF is currently advising governments on over 1,500 MW of generation capacity and offers legal training, knowledge sharing and other capacity building assistance on topics such as complex contract negotiation, management and restructuring of sovereign debt, and public private partnerships.