Powering Africa from Within: How ALCO Plans to Drive Local Content Across Borders

With a vision that challenges the status quo, the African Local Content Organisation (ALCO) is emerging as a driving force for deeper industrial participation and cross-border collaboration across Africa’s resource-rich sectors. At the center of this push is Mr. Ibrahima Talla, ALCO’s Interim Executive Secretary and a seasoned expert in local content and industrial development.

A Senegal-born strategist with over two decades of experience working across the public and private sectors, Talla has helped shape policies and partnerships aimed at building resilient local supply chains across the continent. He has been driving the ALCO movement since 2022, and is now playing a key role in operationalizing its mission.

In this exclusive interview with Ikenna Omeje of Majorwaves, Mr. Talla unpacks ALCO’s unique private-sector-led approach, the challenges of harmonizing local content across diverse African markets, and why building stronger intra-African partnerships is essential. As he makes clear, if Africa is to truly benefit from its own resources, it must move beyond isolated efforts — and start thinking, acting, and building collectively.

What inspired the formation of ALCO, and how does it differ from other regional or continental energy bodies like APPO?

Over the past decade, many emerging oil-producing countries in Africa have adopted local content policies aimed at retaining value through procurement and employment. While this is positive, these policies often overlook the capabilities that already exist within Africa. In practice, African service providers are still treated almost like outsiders, on the same footing as competitors from overseas.

We also observed that many regulations were drafted using benchmarks from other jurisdictions, without fully understanding how those policies actually worked in their countries of origin. This has led to a fragmented approach across the continent, making it difficult to trade and retain value within Africa itself.

We fully acknowledge and appreciate the mission of APPO, which rightly focuses on governments as producers and on resource governance. ALCO, however, has a different DNA: it is private-sector–driven, built around national associations of service providers, such as the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN). Our role is to complement APPO by focusing on industrial participation and supplier empowerment. Moreover, ALCO advocates for integrating local content across all sectors of the economy, starting with oil and gas, but also extending to mining, infrastructure, and energy at large. In this sense, ALCO is positioned as a pan-African, multi-sectoral coalition entirely dedicated to maximizing African participation in projects.

Can you outline ALCO’s core strategic objectives for the next 3–5 years, especially in relation to local content development and intra-African collaboration?

For local content to really succeed, policies must respond to the specific context of each country while remaining consistent with the broader need to facilitate service integration across the continent. Achieving this requires reliable data on private-sector readiness and capacity-building needs, as well as strong institutional recognition.

With this in mind, ALCO’s core strategic objectives for the next 3–5 years are to establish a continental framework for local content policy harmonization. ALCO also aims to deploy its digital platform, Local Compass, to centralize opportunities, partnerships, and data collection.

Another objective is to facilitate intra-African partnerships through a proven model that enables capable service providers in Angola, Ghana, or Nigeria to collaborate with peers in Côte d’Ivoire, Namibia, or Senegal. In addition, ALCO seeks to strengthen capacity-building frameworks by working closely with technical institutions and development partners.

Finally, the organization aims to secure recognition from the African Union, aligning its agenda with AfCFTA to ease cross-border service integration and boost intra-African trade.

What mechanisms will ALCO put in place to ensure effective coordination and cooperation among member countries’ local service providers, given the diversity of legal, economic, and industrial frameworks across Africa?

Africa is a vast market of 55 countries with diverse regulatory and industrial landscapes, so coordination must be strategic to have real impact. ALCO’s entry point to each country is through the national associations of service providers, which we are federating into a continental network. These associations will serve as the national operators of our digital platform, ensuring visibility, knowledge-sharing, and cross-border collaboration.

To strengthen coordination, ALCO will also establish regional working groups (West, East, Central, Southern, and North Africa) that adapt continental objectives to regional realities. Here, we can build on the existing foundation of the African Union’s Regional Economic Communities such as ECOWAS, COMESA, SADC, or the EAC.

In addition, a policy harmonization task force within our Advisory Board will work with governments through the African Local Content Regulators Forum. This mechanism will help bridge legislative gaps and move us closer to a more coherent continental approach.

How will ALCO support member associations in building capacity, transferring technology, and accessing project financing — especially from institutions like Afreximbank, the African Energy Bank?

ALCO’s priority is to deliver tangible value to national associations by helping them respond directly to their members’ needs. Our Local Compass platform is central to this effort: it provides access to opportunities, partnerships, and a marketplace for business linkages both within countries and across borders. The platform’s self-assessment tool further enables companies to identify their strengths and capacity-building needs they will be able to fix through the online training catalogue.

The data generated through Local Compass will strengthen our engagement with development partners such as Afreximbank, the Africa Energy Bank, and other DFIs. This will allow us to design tailored financing instruments that reflect the realities of African service providers. At the same time, these insights will form the basis for supplier development programs in collaboration with IOCs, NOCs, and major subcontractors.

In addition, ALCO will facilitate technology transfer agreements tied to partnerships and joint ventures, ensuring that collaboration leads to skills and knowledge retention. We also plan to deploy training and certification hubs, leveraging African technical institutions and trusted international partners, to upgrade the capabilities of local suppliers across the continent.

What are the biggest challenges ALCO anticipates in implementing a unified local content framework across the continent, and how does the Secretariat plan to navigate these?

The biggest challenge in advancing a unified local content framework across Africa is the diversity of national policies and priorities. Each country has developed its own approach, often based on different benchmarks and levels of industrial maturity. This fragmentation makes it difficult to promote coherence and cross-border value retention.

We also anticipate challenges linked to longstanding practices, such as the over-reliance on expatriate expertise or protectionist measures that may limit regional collaboration. Added to this are capacity gaps among local service providers, which vary significantly from one country to another.

ALCO’s approach is pragmatic. We will begin by working in areas where there is natural alignment and demonstrate impact through pilot initiatives in capacity-building, supplier linkages, and policy dialogue. These practical results will serve as a foundation to strengthen confidence among stakeholders and gradually extend cooperation, with the ultimate goal of moving from fragmentation toward a more coherent and integrated continental framework.

How does ALCO plan to ensure transparency, accountability, and inclusiveness in its operations and decision-making processes?

Transparency, accountability, and inclusiveness are central to ALCO’s governance system. From inception, we have established a structure where all member associations, regardless of country size or economic weight, have equal voting rights. This ensures that decisions reflect a balanced, continental perspective rather than being driven by a few dominant players.

Accountability will be upheld through regular reporting, independent audits, and the public dissemination of program outcomes. We aim to build trust among our members, governments, sponsors, and development partners by making our performance information accessible.

Inclusiveness is embedded in our agenda by deliberately engaging a wide spectrum of stakeholders including SMEs, women and youth-led enterprises, and professionals from the African diaspora, ensuring their participation in capacity-building programs and their access to opportunities. This approach guarantees that the benefits of local content development are broadly shared and that no group is left behind.

In what ways does ALCO intend to engage with international partners, investors, and technology providers without compromising its goal of maximizing local value retention?

We recognize the importance of international partners, investors, and technology providers in Africa’s energy and industrial development. Our approach is about creating frameworks where collaboration translates into real and lasting local value, and not about excluding international partners.

We believe in models such as joint ventures, strategic alliances, and co-investments that embed requirements for skills transfer, technology sharing, and supplier development. This ensures that partnerships go beyond short-term contracts and contribute to building the capabilities of African companies and professionals.

At the same time, ALCO provides a credible continental platform through which international actors can engage with African partners in a structured and transparent way. By doing so, we protect the principle of maximizing local value retention while still offering international partners the clarity and consistency they need to operate effectively across multiple jurisdictions.

What role do you envision for ALCO in supporting the African Union’s African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the broader agenda for industrialization, energy transition, and economic integration?

ALCO sees its role as fully aligned with the African Union’s broader agenda of industrialization, economic integration, and energy transition. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) provides a historic opportunity to expand intra-African trade, and local content is the mechanism that can turn this opportunity into practical benefits for Africans. ALCO intends to help ensure that African companies are positioned to compete and collaborate within this new trading environment through policy harmonization and business linkages across borders.

In terms of industrialization, our focus is on ensuring that resource extraction translates into stronger domestic industries. Local content provides the framework for value addition, from manufacturing and assembly to maintenance and services. By supporting national associations and their members, ALCO contributes to building the industrial base needed to diversify African economies.

On energy transition, our goal is to make sure Africa does not simply import renewable technologies but also develops the capacity to manufacture, assemble, and maintain them locally. This approach ensures that the shift to cleaner energy sources goes hand in hand with job creation, skills development, and technology transfer within the continent.

Through these contributions, ALCO positions itself as a practical partner to the AU, helping translate high-level continental strategies into tangible outcomes that strengthen Africa’s industrial and economic sovereignty.