Sustainable Governance

Victor Ediagbonya’s Corporate Governance in Africa offers a thoughtful and carefully structured engagement with one of the most persistent challenges in African corporate governance: the continued prevalence of governance failures despite the widespread adoption of sophisticated legal and regulatory frameworks. Rather than attributing these failures solely to doctrinal gaps, the book invites a deeper examination of the institutional environments within which corporate governance operates, particularly in the banking sector.

Research on corporate governance is frequent and covered by many disciplines including of course law and, in many cases, interdisciplinary. What is not frequent however, is an investigation into corporate governance in the African region specific to industry sectors. This is an important gap that needed to be filled, and Dr Ediagbonya is one of the first scholars to commence filling it. His book, Corporate Governance in Africa, is a region specific and industry specific investigation on an appropriate and reliable corporate governance framework which is both stable, yet adaptable for the peculiarities of the region.

This book is an excellent contribution to the analysis of corporate governance frameworks from emerging countries. It analyses a timely issue of corporate governance in the banking industry of two African countries, Nigeria and South Africa, with some of the largest economies based on gross domestic product (see the introduction). The banking sector in Africa is a sector of significant growth, although significantly concentrated. McKinsey insights points out that ‘performance in Africa’s banking system is driven by a diverse mix of markets, each with its own unique strategies and challenges.