The East African Development Bank hosted two events to develop the East African
extractives industry in Nairobi in August 2019.
From the 2nd to 3rd August, the East African Development Bank hosted Permanent
Secretaries and other senior government officials from across East Africa to a workshop
that offered capacity building in better negotiating contracts pertaining to natural
resource management in the extractives industries. Lawyers from DLA Piper
implemented the workshop.
From the 5th to the 9th August, the EADB will host public sector lawyers and legal
professionals to a second workshop that will also provide capacity building in better
negotiating contracts pertaining to natural resource management in the extractives
industries, with a greater emphasis on lawyer’s negotiation skills.
The workshops are the seventh and eighth of their kind, hosted by the EADB, in
partnership with law firm DLA Piper, as part of a series to develop natural resource
management in East Africa to ensure that the region maximizes its benefits from the
exploration, exploitation and extraction of its own resources.
Speaking at the opening of the event, EADB’s Director General Ms. Vivienne Yeda
noted that ‘it is increasingly critical that host countries are able to derive tangible
benefits from the exploitation of their natural resources’.
‘Natural resources are a public good that if well managed have the potential to drive
economic development, and if well invested can actually reduce income inequality and
spur meaningful job creation. If national governments benefit from royalties and taxes
stemming from the mining sector, and if these dividends are well invested into human
capital development and economic diversification, then the windfalls from natural
resource discoveries can be used to catalyse socioeconomic development and to
develop a strong economic base for East Africa to grow.’
Ms. Yeda further emphasized that ‘in addition to developing local value addition,
export revenue and skilled job creation, both foreign and domestic mining companies
should be compelled to operate according to strict environmental and social standards’,
whilst ‘national governments must be compelled to invest to ensure that natural
resource wealth is distributed evenly and that the benefits accrue to current and future
generations, even after East Africa’s natural resources have been depleted’.
Principal Secretary to the National Treasury (Kenya), Dr. Julius Monzi Muia, was also
present at the launch and expressed his delight at, and thanked EADB for, the initiative.
In explaining the infamous resource curse, Dr. Muia explained that ‘well structured
government policy relating to natural resource exploration, exploitation and exportation
can prevent an economy from experiencing the infamous resource curse and can instead
leave an economy better off, with more resources to invest in healthcare, education,
infrastructure and a diversified economic base, that will in turn promote job creation
and cement the gains to sustainable economic growth.’
Dr. Muia further expressed that ‘it is critical that we, as civil servants, all work together
to maximize the benefits accruing to our local economies and populations from natural
resource rents’, noting that ‘mining agreements typically constitute substantial and
long-term investments and are complex to structure, requiring specific attention to
environmental and social issues, land issues, the protection of artisanal miners in the
establishment of multinationals, taxation, royalties and value addition’ and that the
finiteness of natural resources requires East African legal professionals and
policymakers to ‘ensure that we fully utilize the potential benefits accruing from a onetime endowment from the onset’.
The training series is organised by EADB and facilitated by global law firm, DLA
Piper. It has been designed for public sector lawyers and legal professionals involved
in negotiating transactions and drafting agreements on behalf of Governments in
extractive sectors and other large-scale projects. The latest trainings were the seventh
and eighth in the series following from recent trainings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and
in Kigali, Rwanda.
