Lomé, the capital of Togo, will host the first Africa Best Practices Forum on 26 and 27 February 2015.

Pan-African bank Ecobank, recruitment agency AfricSearch and company Ellipse Communication are working together, with the support of the World Bank and the West African Development Bank (BOAD), to organise this first forum, which is dedicated exclusively to improving the business framework and environment in Africa.

The Africa Best Practices Forum is intended to be both a forum for exchange and a business platform bringing together African and international experts, public and political administration officials, private sector executives and stakeholders so that they can share their experience with reforms that stimulate growth and employment. “This forum will be an arena for discussions among public and private sector decision-makers in Africa. It will deepen a dialogue on the dissemination of best practices, one that is more important now than ever before,” asserts Didier Acouetey, founder of the recruitment agency AfricSearch.

Some 200 people are expected in Lomé. They include Cheikh Hadjibou Soumaré, President of the WAEMU Commission, Christian Adovelande, President of BOAD, Hervé Assah, World Bank representative for Togo, Alioune Sall, Executive Director of the think tank African Futures Institute, Cody Lee, Director of the Singapore Business Federation, Felix Bikpo, Chief Executive Officer of African Guarantee Fund, Jean-Louis Ekra, President of Afreximbank, Amadou Kane, former Finance Minister of Senegal, and Momar Nguer, Africa Director of Total Supply & Marketing. Delegations from Morocco, Rwanda and Singapore will attend.

The subjects addressed during the two-day forum will include legal and administrative reform, government modernisation, creation of an environment favourable to private sector development and integration of multilateral instruments. A special session will be devoted to innovative reforms. Various tried and tested models from around the world will be analysed in a round table. Finally, a session will be dedicated to new financing methods such as PPP, financial markets, private equity, etc.

“Because the level of investment depends on reforms undertaken by African states, there is an urgent need to accelerate these reforms to promote social and economic change, with the private sector acting as a lever,” concludes Arsène Johnson, the forum sponsor.