Africa Construction Law (ACL) commenced its 6th Annual ACL Conference 2026 today at The Wanderers Club in Johannesburg. The event convenes prominent lawyers, engineers, financiers, policymakers, arbitrators, and investors from across Africa and the international community.
Held under the theme “Construction in Transition: Building Africa’s Infrastructure for the Next Era”, the two-day conference is the continent’s premier platform for construction law, dispute resolution, and infrastructure development.
In his keynote address, Ngo-Martins Okonmah (Partner at Aluko & Oyebode and founder and chair of Africa Construction Law) delivered a frank assessment of the challenges facing African infrastructure, arguing that the continent’s infrastructure deficit is not primarily a funding problem, but a design problem: one rooted in flawed contract structuring, inadequate risk allocation, and legal frameworks ill-equipped for today’s realities.
Says Okonmah “Africa’s infrastructure projects cannot be structured solely for delivery. They must also be structured for survival. The lesson is both specific and universal: if we persist in deploying frameworks that stifle bankability and misallocate risk, we will continue to see projects delayed, restructured, or abandoned. But if we choose to transition (redesigning our contracts, our financing frameworks and our dispute resolution systems) the answer to what Africa can build is a resounding yes.”
Okonmah called on the continent’s legal, technical, and financial communities to move from acknowledgement to action: embedding adaptive climate and currency risk mechanisms into contracts, unlocking local institutional capital through better project structuring, embracing AI-driven contract management and evidence tools, and growing Africa’s own dispute resolution institutions so that infrastructure disputes are resolved at the speed of commerce.
The ACL Conference 2026 is made possible through the generous support of its sponsors: DLA Piper, ENS, HKA, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, PLMJ, MNS Attorneys, Baker McKenzie, ALP NG & Co, Pinsent Masons, Jackson Rowe, Aluko & Oyebode, Keating Chambers, CBBG Group Construction Expert Services - A Vertex Company, Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr (CDH), and C&E Legal Solutions.
Africa Construction Law (ACL)
ACL is a pan-African initiative set up by construction law practitioners across Africa and in the diaspora to promote thought leadership in the field of construction law and practice in Africa. It was established in 2021 to promote thought leadership and expertise in construction law and dispute resolution across the continent. It operates as a specialised platform for construction law practitioners. The initiative was launched by a team of practitioners from across 20+ African countries and the diaspora and has grown to become a leading hub for legal expertise in the African construction and infrastructure sectors, with annual conferences held across Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa.
