A Week Presenting on Special Economic
Zones in Africa

I recently had the privilege of traveling with New Perimeter to South Africa to teach a course on Special Economic Zones at the University of Pretoria. I was honored to present the program alongside DLA Piper lawyers from around the world, including Ashley Bell (Hong Kong), Claire Donse (Paris), Bob Gruendel (New York), Jeffrey Sheehy (Brisbane), and Pieter Paul Terpstra (Amsterdam). At first I was intimidated by the thought of presenting to a group of such highly qualified LLM students from around the African continent, but my time in South Africa was one of the most meaningful experiences I have had as an attorney.

The goal of this week-long program is to teach African lawyers about Special Economic Zones as a potential tool for attracting foreign direct investment and increasing economic development in Africa. On the first day of class, I was impressed by the focus of the students and how eager they were to learn about potential development tools that could be used in their respective home countries. The students in turn were thankful that we had traveled all the way to South Africa to share our cumulative knowledge with them.

In many of our sessions, we would divide the students into teams and assign them each a role in a hypothetical discussion regarding the establishment of a Special Economic Zone. It was so rewarding to see how much the students enjoyed these sessions and how they really gained a mastery of the subject matter in such a short time-frame.

While we were in Pretoria, we also went to lunch with a few students every day and learned about their lives, career goals, and even discussed their potential dissertation topics with them. It was very difficult to say goodbye to the students on the last day of class, and many of these students expressed to us how our week-long session had taught them significant practical tools and that they had learned to think about investment issues from multiple new perspectives. I am so thankful to have been a part of this pro bono program and I sincerely hope that this knowledge will be put to good use in the future!