ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the legal framework for investment. It focuses on the emerging trends in the state contracts for natural resources development between African countries and foreign multi-nationals. The chapter examines the legal framework for transnational lending in Africa, including loan contracts between African countries and foreign commercial banks and loan contracts between African countries and international lending institutions. It explains bilateral agreements for economic and technical cooperation between the African countries and the developed countries, on the one hand, and similar agreements between African states and the other developing countries of the Third World, on the other hand. The debt burden of the nonoil developing countries and therefore those in sub-Saharan Africa is a subject about which the United Nations has expressed concern and for which certain remedial actions have been suggested. The increase in borrowing from foreign commercial banks by the nonoil African countries has been due to a vigorous campaign by the banks.
