In June 2013, President Obama announced the Power Africa initiative.  Power Africa seeks to address one of the greatest challenges to sustainable economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa - access to electrical power.  Power Africa brings together resources within the US government, international institutions and African governments and the private sector, to generate investment in power resources, generation, and transmission in six African countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, and Tanzania).  As part of this initiative, the US Department of Commerce Commercial Law Development Program (CLDP) has been asked by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to assist in the streamlining of the power project negotiation and development process, through technical assistance capacity building, and the drafting and explication of key provisions in power purchase agreements (PPAs) and related documents.

CLDP is working with a variety of partners, including the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the African Legal Support Facility (ALSF), the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), and the Initiative for Global Development (IGD) and international law firms to develop a document library of annotated agreements that form the core of power project transactions. CLDP will utilize this library, along with a pool of legal and regulatory energy experts, to build capacity within the Power Africa countries to better understand and employ these agreements.

As a part of CLDP’s Power Africa program, CLDP hosted a Workshop on the Annotation of Power Purchase Agreements for Power Africa, March 26-28, 2014.  The workshop brought together about 25 international energy lawyers, lawyers from ALSF, OPIC and IGD, and government officials from Ghana, Nigeria, and Tanzania.  This unique gathering of expertise, experience, and perspectives, resulted in a consensus of considerations and consequences (annotations) for each of the identified “contentious” PPA provisions.  The resultant annotated PPA provisions will serve as a tool that will facilitate the negotiation of power purchase agreements, as well as build the capacity within the Power Africa countries to both understand and maintain these agreements.