The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe, has charged sub-Saharan African nations to keep pace with unfolding trends in the global oil and gas industry.
\nHe also charged them to adopt a unified approach in strengthening local content development, advancing industrialisation and fostering sustainable continent-wide economic growth.
\nOgbe stated this in a keynote address he gave at the 9th Sub-Saharan African International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (SAIPEC), in Lagos, last Tuesday.
\nAccording to him, nations such as Nigeria, Angola, and Ghana have made notable strides in local content development by boosting indigenous participation in the oil and gas sector.
\nHe, however, expressed regret that fragmented implementation continues to hinder collective progress.
\nThe NCDMB scribe called for a collaborative strategy among petroleum-producing nations in sub-Saharan Africa that would foster the sharing of best practices and enhance cross-border partnerships that could drive the competitiveness of indigenous players.
\nIn his paper entitled \u201cSub-Saharan Africa Local Content Collaboration Strategy\u201d, Engr. Ogbe identified harmonisation of local content policies, human capital development, investment in infrastructure, funding for local companies and technology transfer, as key pillars to Africa\u2019s collaboration strategy.
\nHe noted that \u201cthere is a need to develop a robust local content framework that positions the region for long-term economic prosperity\u201d, and that this could be fostered \u201cthrough the collaborative efforts of the African Petroleum Producers Organisation (APPO), and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union\u201d.
\nThe NCDMB boss also highlighted the importance of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) as a critical legal framework that could be leveraged to achieve collaborative local content strategy in Africa, given the free trade area it has created by integrating 1.3 billion people across 54 African countries with a combined gross domestic product of over $3 trillion.
\nOn human capital development, which he described as \u201cpivotal to the successful implementation of local content\u201d,\u00a0 he observed that approximately 60% of Africa\u2019s population is currently under the age of 25, and that this teeming population provides a unique opportunity to fast-track development.<\/p>\n
Ariwera Ibibo-Howells, Yenagoa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe, has charged sub-Saharan African nations to keep pace with unfolding trends in the global oil and gas industry. He also charged them to adopt a unified approach in strengthening local content development, advancing industrialisation and fostering sustainable continent-wide economic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341956"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":341968,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341956\/revisions\/341968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetidenewsonline.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}