The New Partnership for Africa\u27s Development: Institutional and Legal Challenges of Investment Promotion

This paper is divided into five parts. Part I introduces NEPAD, its philosophical basis and objectives. Part II discusses the investment promotion role of NEPAD and its difference from past development thinking about Africa\u27s problems. In Part III we discuss NEPAD\u27s strategy for realizing investment flows into Africa, some of the NEPAD\u27s institutional weaknesses, and the repercussions thereof in realizing the NEPAD objectives. It also highlights the potential implications of NEPAD to the regional integration plan in Africa. Taking into account the supposed political clash between NEPAD and the AU, Part IV discusses possible ways of restructuring NEPAD to enable it to function better as an investment promotion strategy and Part V concludes

Bilateral Investment Treaties and the Possibility of a Multilateral Framework on Investment at the WTO: Are Poor Economies Caught in Between

The increased Foreign Direct Investment ( FDI ) flows in the past few years have strengthened the belief among many developing countries, especially African countries, that such FDI flows could help in reducing the resource, technology and foreign exchange gaps that constrain their economic development. As a result, many developing countries have beendiligently working to attract foreign investment, for which these countries give some of the highest returns; in the process, these countries make concessions that they would have found unthinkable in the past, when autarchic economic policies were prevalent. For example, due to the liberalization of capital accounts, a foreign investor in Kenya is guaranteed limitless capital and interest repatriation and dividends remittance as long as he can show that he has already paid the requisite taxes. Besides domestic law, provisions granting more or less similar opportunities for foreign investors have been included in the various Bilateral Investment Treaties ( BITs ) that have been signed by African countries over the years

Bilateral Investment Treaties and the Possibility of a Multilateral Framework on Investment at the WTO: Are Poor Economies Caught in Between

The increased Foreign Direct Investment ( FDI ) flows in the past few years have strengthened the belief among many developing countries, especially African countries, that such FDI flows could help in reducing the resource, technology and foreign exchange gaps that constrain their economic development. As a result, many developing countries have beendiligently working to attract foreign investment, for which these countries give some of the highest returns; in the process, these countries make concessions that they would have found unthinkable in the past, when autarchic economic policies were prevalent. For example, due to the liberalization of capital accounts, a foreign investor in Kenya is guaranteed limitless capital and interest repatriation and dividends remittance as long as he can show that he has already paid the requisite taxes. Besides domestic law, provisions granting more or less similar opportunities for foreign investors have been included in the various Bilateral Investment Treaties ( BITs ) that have been signed by African countries over the years