Mr. Munyantwali focuses on how enhanced legal infrastructure can be a useful tool in promoting African economic development. Currently, Africa’s legal and judicial institutions, while improving, still need strengthening to cope with the demands of Africa's rapid economic development and effective participation in the global economy. Many legal and judicial institutions on the African continent are hampered by archaic practices, such as non existent or outdated court reports, the hand recording of court decisions, the lack of or limited application of alternate modes of dispute resolution, and rampant court corruption. When coupled with other functional inadequacies, such prevailing factors render many jurisdictions unattractive for investment. Local and foreign investors are drawn to investment destinations characterized by functioning courts and speedy adjudication of disputes rooted in a reasonably predicable jurisprudential normative framework. Many commentators have observed that to reverse this trend requires the political will to establish institutions that adhere to the aforementioned norms and symbolize adherence to basic rule of law principles - such as a functioning judiciary, predicable and well-drafted laws, solid legal and judicial institutions and well trained legal professionals. To the casual western observer this might be taken for granted and presumably easy to establish, but these are serious challenges in many African and emerging global economies. Many of the problems are rooted in undemocratic and former command economies that are rapidly adopting capitalistic norms driven by a dominant private sector. The discussion offers a range of possible solutions towards a regime underscored by a solid legal infrastructure.
