Project Case Study
Devising a corporate governance strategy for Africa
Improving corporate governance across Africa
Since 2001, the African Development Bank has been the lead agency implementing the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, Africa’s strategic framework for poverty eradication which works by bridging the continent’s infrastructure gap.
The African Development Bank also implements a key component of the New Partnership, the African Peer Review Mechanism, which encourages peer review of government and economic mechanisms, promoting good governance in order to fulfil the continent’s socio-economic goals.
To support the Bank in its work with the Partnership, we were contracted in 2003 to advise on the development of its strategy to improve corporate governance in Africa, and to implement the African Peer Review on corporate governance. Based on our detailed understanding of corporate governance as a mechanism for promoting national development, our team developed a framework for promoting corporate governance that complement the individual structure of Africa’s private sector, and that contributes to addressing the wider challenges of political and social development.
Our recommended programme of action thus included, among other things, the promotion of good governance within small and medium sized enterprises, as well as publically listed companies, and incorporates the principles of corporate social responsibility as core elements of corporate governance. It also built on the use of corporate governance as a lever to enhance political and economic governance overall.
