http://www.africaconstructionlaw.org/

Africa Construction Law, Sandton (2026)

02/06/2026

🎙️ 𝐀𝐂𝐋 𝐏𝐨𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐬𝐭 – 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 4 𝐍𝐨𝐰 𝐋𝐢𝐯𝐞

How can Africa's energy sector balance sustainability, operational efficiency, and commercial realities in an increasingly complex and evolving market?

In Episode 4 of the ACL Podcast, we are joined by Ehab A., CEO of PetroGas Libya, for an insightful discussion on innovation, engineering excellence, and the future of sustainable energy infrastructure in Africa.

As the global energy industry faces growing pressure to reduce gas flaring and lower carbon emissions, PetroGas Libya is demonstrating how practical, technically robust, and commercially viable solutions can support both operational performance and sustainability objectives.

In this episode, we explore:

🔹 Reducing gas flaring through innovative engineering solutions

🔹 Managing carbon emissions in challenging operating environments

🔹 Balancing sustainability, efficiency, and commercial realities

🔹 Innovation and strategic decision-making in the energy sector

🔹 The future of energy infrastructure across Africa

🔹 The role of local expertise in driving long-term industry transformation

This conversation offers valuable insights for energy professionals, engineers, investors, policymakers, and anyone interested in the future of Africa's energy transition.

🎧 Listen to the full episode here: https://youtu.be/aZejBshkdEE

What role do you believe innovation and engineering will play in shaping a more sustainable energy future for Africa?

Proudly Sponsored by SOCOTEC Forensics & Advisory

🤝

27/05/2026

🚀 𝐉𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐒𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐋𝐚𝐰 𝐢𝐧 𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚

Are you passionate about construction law, dispute resolution, infrastructure development, research, events, communications, membership engagement, or professional development?

Africa Construction Law (ACL) is expanding, and we are looking for talented, driven, and purpose-led professionals to join our growing team across a range of exciting roles.

At ACL, you will have the opportunity to contribute to initiatives that are transforming the construction and infrastructure industry across Africa through education, capacity building, thought leadership, networking, and industry collaboration.

Whether you are an experienced professional or an emerging leader looking to make an impact, we encourage you to explore the available opportunities and become part of our mission.

🔗 View available roles: https://africaconstructionlaw.org/careers/

📩 How to Apply:

Send your CV and a short cover note (𝒏𝒐 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒏 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒑𝒂𝒈𝒆) explaining:

• The role you are applying for

• Why are you interested in joining ACL at this stage of your career

Email your application to:

📧 [email protected]

We carefully review every application. If your profile is a strong match, our team will contact you within two weeks.

Join us in advancing construction law, infrastructure development, and professional excellence across Africa.

27/05/2026

🌙✨ Eid Al-Adha Mubarak from Africa Construction Law (ACL)

As we celebrate this season of sacrifice, faith, compassion, and unity, we extend our warmest wishes to our members, partners, colleagues, and the wider construction and legal community across Africa and beyond.

Eid Mubarak. 🤍

27/05/2026

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐏𝐀𝐍-𝐀𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐄𝐌𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐋 𝐒𝐔𝐑𝐕𝐄𝐘 𝐎𝐍 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

Africa is witnessing unprecedented growth in infrastructure and construction projects across the continent. Yet, despite the scale of investment and development, there remains very limited empirical data on how construction disputes are managed and resolved across Africa.

That changes now. Africa Construction Law (ACL) has launched the 𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐧𝐭-𝐰𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐯𝐞𝐲 on construction dispute resolution in Africa — a landmark initiative designed to capture the realities, challenges, and future of dispute resolution across the African construction industry. A joint initiative between Africa Construction Law (ACL) and King's College London.

This is more than a survey.

It is a historic industry-wide knowledge project.

📊 The survey covers disputes arising between January 2021 and December 2025 across:

▪️ Arbitration

▪️ Mediation

▪️ Adjudication

▪️ Dispute Boards

▪️ Negotiation

▪️ Litigation / Court Proceedings

We are inviting participation from:

🏗️ Employers, contractors, consultants, developers & project stakeholders involved in construction projects in Africa

⚖️ Lawyers, arbitrators, claims consultants, experts & practitioners who have handled construction disputes in Africa

🏛️ Arbitration centres, dispute resolution institutions & professional bodies administering construction disputes

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬.

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬.

𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬.

The future of Africa’s construction dispute resolution framework should be built on African data, African realities, and African experience.

📍 Join hundreds of industry leaders across Africa contributing to this groundbreaking initiative.

📍 Scan the QR code below or complete the survey here: https://bit.ly/4u36YFs

Take the Survey Today

The quality of the findings depends on the breadth of participation.

𝐀𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐀’𝐒 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐈𝐍𝐃𝐔𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐘 𝐇𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐕𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐄.

𝐈𝐓 𝐈𝐒 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄 𝐓𝐎 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐑 𝐈𝐓.

The Research Team includes: Ngo-Martins Okonmah FCIArb, Asiya Ali, Professor Renato Nazzini KC (李納德), and Raquel Macedo Moreira.

The Steering Committee is composed of Dr. Ademola Bamgbose, Michelle Porter-Wright, Ilham Kabbouri, Omonigho Oyoma Brown, Paula Ochango, Nagla Nassar, Dr Engy Serag, Primah Atugonza Kyambadde, and Sofia Vale.

17/05/2026

Hope the weekend was good — ours certainly was! Now, back to business. The best is yet to come — buckle up! 🚀🔥

SESSION 6: AI-Enhanced Contract Management & Evidence Preservation in African Construction Projects

Day 2 pressed on and Session 6 stopped the room.
Chaired by Sonia Guerra, the discussion was equal parts provocative, practical, and timely.

Two questions set the tone:
“Try suing a lawyer!”
“Can a client hold their lawyer accountable if confidential information is shared with AI?”
~ Kamogelo Mashigo

Everyone was leaning forward. 👀

Key insights:

📁 Khaya Mantegu — poor contemporaneous records and informal site instructions are at the heart of many failed claims. The result? Broad retrospective narratives instead of clear, traceable cause-and-effect evidence.

⏱️ David Coyne — delay analysis is a three-hurdle process: baseline programme, contemporaneous records, corroborating evidence. Falling at the second hurdle is often fatal. AI can process data at scale — but traceability remains non-negotiable.

🔍 Philip Kaheru — AI is only as effective as its use. Proper prompting, structured inputs, and rigorous verification against contractual documents are essential. Without discipline, AI produces misleading results.

⚖️ Kamogelo Mashigo — legal responsibility always remains with the contracting party. Audit trails and verification before relying on AI outputs are not optional. They are the baseline.

📊 Lizanne — AI excels at structuring unstructured datasets, but falls short in critical path analysis, which demands expert judgment no tool can replicate.

12/05/2026

Session 5 | 6th Africa Construction Law Conference 2026, Johannesburg 🇿🇦:Project Security: Law, Finance & Strategic Power

“Project security is key to discipline in terms of agreed cost, quality of work, and time. It keeps all parties on their obligations, particularly contractors, ensuring that national infrastructure delivery remains anchored to accountability, performance standards, and contractual certainty.”
~Dr. Kolawole Mayomi

Day 2 moving on swiftly and the momentum only grew stronger. Session 5 brought an equally thought-provoking deep dive into project security in African construction projects a discussion that quickly revealed that this is no longer purely a legal conversation.
The panel chaired by James Doe examined performance guarantees, bonds, and their role in balancing legal certainty with the commercial and financial realities on the ground across Africa.Key insights from the panel:
⚖️ Yolanda Walker unpacked the strong autonomy of on-demand guarantees under the “pay now, argue later” principle courts will rarely intervene except in narrow cases of fraud, illegality, or exceptional contractual limitations. Banks honour valid demands without investigating underlying disputes; resolution follows in arbitration or litigation.
🏦Gabriela Palacios-Flusk brought the funder’s lens decisions to call security are often shaped by broader financial considerations, including cross-default risks and the imperative to preserve project continuity, not just contractual triggers.

🏗️ Solagbade Sogbetun traced the evolution of project finance structures — PPPs, mezzanine finance, milestone-based funding — and the growing use of step-in rights and direct agreements to manage risk across increasingly complex financing arrangements.
📊 Thobani Trevor Mnyandu identified three critical market pressures reshaping the landscape:
1. The emergence of non-traditional guarantee providers
2. Growing judicial scrutiny of their regulatory status
3. A deepening mismatch between contractual expectations of on-demand guarantees and their enforceability in practice

12/05/2026

“Local content challenges can sometimes be driven by political influence and corruption, which may undermine transparency and fair participation,”
-Paula Ochango.

Session 4 | 6th Africa Construction Law Conference 2026, Johannesburg 🇿🇦

Day 2 of the Africa Construction Law Conference kicked off with a very thought-provoking discussion on local content requirements and the ever-present tension between international and local contractors ; one of the most complex and consequential conversations in African infrastructure today.

Expertly chaired by Kieran Whyte, Session 4 brought together sharp, continent-wide perspectives on how local content frameworks are evolving to balance investment attractiveness with meaningful local participation. Key takeaways from the panel:
🇿🇦 South Africa | Ntombi Nyaga reminded us that local content is not just a compliance exercise - it must deliver real participation for previously disadvantaged communities and drive long-term industry growth.

🇰🇪 Kenya | Paula Ochango highlighted how Kenya is refining procurement pathways and building stronger collaboration between international developers and local firms.

🇿🇼 Zimbabwe | Beatrice Moyo traced the shift from earlier rigid regimes to more flexible approaches — making projects more bankable while keeping local participation at the centre.

🇬🇭 Ghana | Elizabeth Ashun walked us through Ghana’s structured procurement lists — improving transparency and strengthening how projects are matched with local suppliers.

🌍 International perspective | Diogo Duarte da Campos raised the critical question of whether governments are treating international contractors on equal footing — because predictability and fairness are what attract long-term investment.

The big theme across all markets:
Local content works best when it is gradual, measurable and practical — with strong monitoring to track investment value, local procurement and economic development outcomes.
Flexibility. Transparency. Collaboration. These aren’t just buzzwords — they’re the architecture of an inclusive and bankable infrastructure future for Africa.

11/05/2026

SESSION 3 focused on Dispute Boards in Africa: Demystifying DAAB practice and enforcing decisions from site to 💺
🏗️ What if the most expensive thing on your construction project... was the dispute you didn’t plan for?
The numbers don’t lie: 12.5% of contract value lost to formal disputes. 0.5% to prevent them with a Dispute Board.
The math isn’t complicated ; the mindset is.
At , Session 3 brought together global voices to demystify DAAB practice across Africa from site-level decisions all the way to arbitral seat enforcement.
And one message rang loud and clear:
“A Dispute Board is only as powerful as the ecosystem behind it.”
Africa is building at an unprecedented pace. 🌍 Our dispute resolution system needs to keep up.
It’s time to stop treating Dispute Boards as a legal overhead and start treating them as the project governance tools they truly are.
🔑 Great contract design means nothing without the ecosystem to back it up.

AfricaConstruction InfrastructureLaw DisputeResolution PanAfrican LegalExcellence NetworkingOpportunity

11/05/2026

Session 2 of the , chaired by Nikita Lalla, tackled one of infrastructure law’s most pressing tensions: the gap between how contracts are drafted and how risk actually materialises on African projects.
Key insights from the panel:
Currency volatility, climate shocks, and supply chain disruption are now structural features of infrastructure delivery, not exceptions.
Force majeure clauses predominantly provide time relief, leaving contractors to absorb significant unplanned financial costs.
Traditional EPC models prioritise risk transfer over risk understanding, which breaks down when risks exceed what was foreseeable at tender stage.
Dispute resolution is only as effective as the quality of early contract administration and party cooperation.
The session reinforced that the problem is not the absence of contractual tools. It is the persistent mismatch between how those tools are drafted and the realities of African infrastructure delivery.
Thank you to our chair Nikita Lalla and panelists Joana Brandão, Omonigho Oyoma Brown, John Coghlan, David Kaggwa, and Brittany Muller for a grounding and insightful session.

DisputeResolution PanAfrican LegalExcellence NetworkingOpportunity

11/05/2026

SESSION 1 – Critical Infrastructure: Mapping the Projects Shaping Africa’s Economic Future

Institutional capital across Africa is abundant, yet infrastructure delivery continues to be constrained not by funding scarcity, but by project structures insufficiently aligned with real‑world delivery conditions.

True bankability must therefore be understood not as financial closeability, but as delivery viability under increasingly volatile conditions ranging from climate extremes and currency instability to fragmented procurement systems and supply chain disruption.

Rigid risk allocation often places disproportionate pressure on contractors, undermining project performance even after financial close and contributing to claims escalation, strained relationships, and, in some cases, project failure.

The focus must shift towards more adaptive structuring where currency, climate, and supply chain risks are managed through flexible contractual mechanisms rather than rigid transfer models. Dispute resolution frameworks remain important, but they cannot compensate for weak front‑end design.

Without aligning financing structures with delivery realities, capital availability alone will not translate into successful infrastructure outcomes.

Grateful to have engaged with insights from:

Mapanza Nkwilimba (DLA Piper, Qatar)

Lloyd Mphahlele (Bayobab South Africa FibreCo)

Rivoningo Mnisi (Eskom Renewables / Eskom Rotek Industries)

Kwadwo Sarkodie (Mayer Brown, UK)

Bavesh Pillay (Bowmans, South Africa)

Lungisani Zulu (Equitas Legal Practitioners / SADC‑LAW)

Siham Salie‑Abrahams (HKA, South Africa)

DisputeResolution PanAfrican LegalExcellence NetworkingOpportunity

Africa Construction Law

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