The Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank Group (TDB Group) has become the latest member of the African Legal Support Facility (ALSF), after depositing its instrument of accession to the Agreement for the Establishment of the African Legal Support Facility on 5 March 2024.
The accession was celebrated during the signing ceremony which took place at TDB Tower, TDB Group’s Nairobi Operations Hub, on the 27 May 2024.
With its accession to the ALSF Agreement, TDB Group became the sixty-first member of the ALSF, and the eighth institutional member, following the lead of the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the African Union (AU), and joining several other regional MDBs and the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). The ALSF comprises 48 African countries and 5 non-African countries.
Admassu Tadesse, TDB Group President and Managing Director said “We are pleased to join the membership of ALSF, an important institution on our continent working to bolster the capacity of public and other actors in our region as they handle more complex commercial negotiations and sovereign transactions which are instrumental to our continent’s sustainable development. At TDB Group, we believe that human and institutional capital is as important as financial capital, and value the mission of ALSF”.
Mr. Olivier Pognon, ALSF Chief Executive Officer noted the excellent and complementary partnership between ALSF and TDB and expressed his appreciation to the Group President and Managing Director of TDB, Mr. Admassu Tadesse, for his continued support and commitment to both institutions working together for the sustainable economic development of their Member States.
TDB Group and ALSF initiated their collaboration in 2021 with the signing of a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on the development and delivery of capacity building training programs for public sector lawyers in Africa. Since then, the institutions have jointly organized two trainings covering legal ethics and anti-bribery and corruption obligations, sovereign debt and infrastructure, as well as power purchase agreements and legal frameworks for energy infrastructure for about a combined 140 public sector lawyers from 24 countries.
Following the formalisation of TDB Group’s accession to ALSF, the two institutions look forward to elevating their collaboration to build additional legal capacity in development initiatives in Africa and to partnering in providing support to joint member states in the development of strategic impactful projects.