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A Special Case: Zambia's Economic Meltdown

Join Professor Oliver Saasa, Ms Margaret Mwanakatwe, Ms Irmgard Erasmus and Mr Peter Leon as they discuss Zambia's Economic Meltdown with Ray Hartley of The Brenthurst Foundation and Henning Suhr of the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.

  • Oliver Saasa

    Professor of International Economic Relations | CEO, Premier Consult Limited

  • Irmgard Erasmus

    Senior Financial Economist, NKC African Economics

  • Ray Hartley

    The Brenthurst Foundation

  • Peter Leon

    Partner and Global Co-Chair of Africa Group, Herbert Smith Freehills

  • Christiaan Endres

    Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung


  • Margaret Mwanakatwe​​​​​​​    
    Margaret Mhango Mwanakatwe is a Zambian politician who was the Minister of Finance from  February 2018 to July 2019. She worked previously as a businesswoman, accountant, and bank executive.

    She was the director for business development in Anglophone Africa at the United Bank for Africa at the bank's headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. In this role she supervised business development in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

    Before that, she served as the managing director and chief executive officer of the United Bank for Africa Uganda Limited from March 2009 until May 2011.

  • Oliver Saasa 
    Oliver Saasa is Professor of International Economic Relations and Managing Consultant/CEO of Premier Consult Limited in Lusaka. Prior to 2000, Prof. Saasa served for 12 years as the Director of the Institute of Economic and Social Research at the University of Zambia. A Rhodes Scholar, Prof. Saasa obtained his doctorate in 1983 from Southampton University in the UK. 
     
    Prof. Saasa has served and continues to serve on many financial sector boards at both national and international levels. These have included the Trade and Development Bank (formerly the PTA Bank) of which he was Chairman; Stanbic Bank (Zambia); Trade and Development Fund (a subsidiary of the TDB – of which he is Chairman); Public Service Pensions Fund in Zambia; and the Africa Economic Research Consortium (AERC). He is also Chancellor of Mulungushi University in Zambia, one of the public universities. 
     
    Prof. Saasa, a regularly-quoted personality on the Zambian scene, has published widely in the field of trade, investment and international economic relations, concentrating in earlier years on regional integration and trade and investment promotion in Southern Africa. In the past 25 years, he has released several books on the relations between developed and developing countries, focusing primarily on aid and investment flows and donor-recipient structures and systems for aid management.

  • Irmgard Erasmus
    Irmgard Erasmus is the senior financial economist at NKC African Economics, having joined the company as a macroeconomist and fixed income analyst from JP Morgan in 2013. Irmgard holds a post-graduate degree in financial economics from the University of Stellenbosch.

  • Peter Leon
    Peter holds a LLM (first class honours) and Diploma in Comparative Legal Studies from the University of Cambridge. Additionally, he has an LLB (cum laude) and a BA (awarded with distinction in Roman Law) from the University of Cape Town. He was elected as senior scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge and is a council member of the Legal Practice Division of the International Bar Association responsible for the Africa Regional Forum and the section for energy, natural resources and infrastructure law.
     
    Peter’s areas of expertise include crisis management, resource nationalism, mineral and petroleum regulation in developing countries (including international best practice), black economic empowerment and indigenisation law, international investment law and investment protection. 

    Owing to Peter's expertise he has significant experience in resource regulatory issues across Anglophone Africa.  As a consequence, he regularly advises clients on an array of contentious matters involving States in sub-Saharan Africa, including disputes arising from the negotiation and implementation of major mine development agreements.  He is also well versed in the sub-Saharan African geopolitical climate and accordingly provides strategic advice not only on issues related to the mineral regulatory framework but also how to navigate the framework within the prevailing economic and political conditions in key African mining jurisdictions.  He is particularly skilled in crisis management and has provided expert advice on an urgent basis to clients to assist them in managing and mitigating significant country risks.  

    Peter is an accomplished speaker and a regular presenter and panellist at conferences, courses and Parliamentary hearings in South Africa and internationally.  He has also written extensively on the topics of mining, resource nationalism, the regulation of foreign direct investment, and black economic empowerment and indigenisation law. He is an honorary lecturer at the University of Dundee in Scotland's Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy.

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