OREANDA-NEWS. December 02, 2015. The African Legal Support Facility (ALSF) together with partners conducted a five-day training for government officials on the legal aspects of preparing Public Private Partnerships (PPP). The event was held in Lome, Togo. 

Participants included regulators, private and public lawyers, professional services practitioners and financiers representing Benin, Cameroon, C?te d’Ivoire, Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Mauritania, Niger, and the West African Development Bank (BOAD).

The training was conducted within the framework of the ALSF’s capacity building pillar. It aimed at strengthening the capacity of government officials to structure PPP projects so as to bridge Africa’s infrastructure financing needs.

In a statement read on behalf of Serge N'Guessan, Resident Representative of the African Development Bank Group Togo Field Office, Adam Amoumoune, stated that the training was timely given that the PPP model is increasingly becoming an ideal model of financing being used by many African countries to attract investments. This, he said, can be instrumental to improving the delivery of public services.

Nathalie Brou-Fofana, BOAD’s representative reiterated the importance of the training, which she observed, was helping to enhance and refine the expertise of those involved in PPPs. “There is a strong push toward the promotion of PPPs as a supplementary mechanism of financing the economy of the states; therefore a skilled workforce is crucial,” she added.

The workshop was organised in partnership with the French Development Agency, the Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility, and BOAD, among others.