MEDIA

Echoes from the field

Producing tomorrow’s lawyers: ALSF Academy is highlighted at IBA Africa Forum

Accra, Ghana, November 16, 2017—The ALSF’s Senior Legal Counsel, Ms. Oluwatoyin Ojo participated in a high-level panel discussion during the 2017 International Bar Association’s (IBA) Africa Regional Forum, held in Accra, Ghana from 15-17 November. 

Organized around the proposition “Creating CLE formats for improving the standard of bar members in Africa,” the roundtable discussion was chaired by Nankunda Katangaza, and benefited from the participation of leading Ghanaian Lawyer Felix Ntrakwah of Ntrakwah & Co; Former Zambian Attorney General and Senior Counsel of Mwenye & Mwitwa, Musa Mwenye; and Deborah Enix-Ross, Senior Adviser at Debevoise & Plimpton and Chair of the American Bar Association’s House of Delegates.

With an audience full of young and aspiring African lawyers, the panelists wrestled with the question of how best to design and implement the continuing legal education (CLE) courses which are required of lawyers after their initial admission to their national bar. The panel agreed that African lawyers’ continuing legal education must to be relevant in relation to their jurisdiction to ensure countries are producing lawyers that can assist their country’s needs.  

In response to the discussion’s prompt, Ms. Ojo underscored the need to strengthen Bar Associations and law societies, and hinted at the Facility’s efforts to help fill that role, “The ALSF has identified specific capacity gaps whilst assisting African governments in contract negotiations. In an effort to address this, the Facility has developed the ALSF Academy to focus on the Facility’s core areas: Contracts relating to extractives (natural resources), infrastructure, and sovereign debt litigation.”

For more information, see http://www.aflsf.org.

Contact: Omar Yusuf, Communications Officer, African Legal Support Facility, o.yusuf@afdb.org