OREANDA-NEWS.  The African Legal Support Facility (ALSF) and its partners concluded a five-day training focused on Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in infrastructure projects. Attended by PPP infrastructure experts from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, C?te d'Ivoire, Senegal, Togo, Congo, Mauritania and Nigeria, the training was held under the ALSF’s flagship Nomadic PPP training programme that seeks to address institutional, legal, contractual and financial aspects of PPPs. The training was held from January 18-22, 2016 at the Centre d'?tudes financi?res, ?conomiques et bancaires (CEFEB) headquarters in Marseille, France.

This PPP workshop on infrastructures is tailored to provide African governments with capacity to structure win-win PPP projects in an effort to efficiently bridge Africa’s infrastructure financing needs, stated Maude Vall?e, Principal Legal Counsel of the ALSF.

The interactive training method provided the participants with an opportunity to assess the institutional framework in their respective countries. In addition, the participants reviewed key aspects of PPPs in road, rail, airport and port projects.  

According to ALSF Director Stephen Karangizi, it is essential that governments have an understanding of the agreements that lie at the heart of business transactions that they enter into.

Since the launch of the Nomadic PPP training programme, over 130 PPP experts from 30 African countries have been trained at sessions convened in C?te d'Ivoire in November 2012, Senegal in November 2013, Kenya in July 2015,C?te d'Ivoire and Togo in November 2015, and France in 2016.

The Nomadic PPP training, a three-year training programme, is a joint collaborative effort between the ALSF, Agence Fran?aise de D?veloppement (AFD) through its corporate university, CEFEB, and Expertise France.

The programme seeks to strengthen the capacity of experts and government officials so that they are able to identify, prepare, develop and negotiate bankable PPP projects.