Alhaji Abdullahi Abbas, the Plateau Commissioner for Solid Mineral Resources, has decried the neglect of host communities by mining companies in the state. He alleged that 95 per cent of their workforce were foreigners. ``The law says that 70 per cent of the workforce should be from the host communities, but in my recent tour…

Compliments of the new season to all our readers! We trust that you have come back well refreshed and ready to tackle 2016 as we continue to design solutions for Africa.

It is human nature to always think and believe that we know it all, but it is really interesting to note how much we don’t know when we continue reading, researching and dreaming of solutions for sustainable development.

In this article we continue with our discussion on credit enhancement and risk mitigation instruments to facilitate infrastructure investments. We take a particular look at the role of Export Credit Agencies, commonly known as ECAs. These are predominantly public agencies and entities that provide government-backed loans, guarantees and insurance to facilitate exports from their home…

In recent articles we have spoken about credit enhancement to accelerate infrastructure investment. Our experience in the African market has shown that credit enhancement is critical to attract foreign direct investment towards infrastructure.

One of the central challenges we face in infrastructure development is to understand the interplay between political forces and economic forces. Political power and the power of free enterprise run in parallel tracks.

Sovereign guarantees are given by host governments to assure project lenders that the government will take certain actions or refrain from taking certain actions affecting the project.

Most great cities were established and grew due to a place-based function. Ports such as London and Cairo hosted trade by ship for millennia. Some cities were defensive centers in strategic locations, or located at the crossroads or terminal points of important trade routes. Generally, cities grow when access to raw materials expands by trade,…

We at National Standard have received many responses to our articles here in The Guardian. One recent letter has asked how, in a world of grand international finance, the new entrepreneur or small business owner can get a better start in today’s world.

The growth and success of any corporate organization depends overtly on the quality of people charged with managing the operations of the company.

In a previous article, we reviewed Kingdon’s theories about the multiple-stream policy process. His theories revolve around the idea that some projects are pushed to success when three “streams” converge – the problem stream, the political stream, and the policy stream.

In recent articles we have been talking about many issues ranging from the need to create enabling environments for investment, the infrastructure challenge for Africa, the financing gap and government policy formulation process among other issues. All the issues we have been discussing require solid policy frameworks.We discussed in the most recent article the government…