Dr Miriam Mbah-Amanze

Professional biography

Dr Amanze’s research interest is in international and national Public Procurement Law, with a particular focus on sustainable procurement.  She also has an interest in European Union Law, Human Rights Law and international law. Dr Mbah welcomes PhD supervision in these fields.

Dr Amanze’s doctoral studies titled: ‘Addressing Human Trafficking through Public Procurement: An Examination of US and Australia Federal Procurement Frameworks’ examined the procurement frameworks of the selected countries in preventing and mitigating trafficking practices within their supply chains. The thesis also outlined the limitations to the Framework’s anti-trafficking provisions and provided a comprehensive recommendation to the selected countries.

Publications

• Amanze M and Eyo A,  ‘Financing infrastructure procurement and workers' rights: the role of regional development banks’ in O Martin-Ortega and L Treviño Lozano (eds) Sustainable Public Procurement of Infrastructure and Human Rights: Beyond Building Green. Corporations, Globalisation and the Law (Edward Edgar, 2023), 85-109

• Mbah M and Eyo A, 'Strengthening the Prohibition of Forced or Indentured Child Labor in Government Contracts: A Critical Analysis of FAR Subpart 22.15’ [2023] Public Contract Law Journal, 52(3) (pp. 343-368)

• Amanze M, Cahill D and Evans C, ‘Tackling Human Trafficking in Governments Supply Chains: Legal Certainty & Effectiveness Issues Under the Australian Commonwealth Procurement Rules Model’ Federal Law Review [2022] 50 (4), 479 - 503

• Mbah M, Addressing Human Trafficking Through Public Procurement: An Examination of US and Australian Federal Procurement Frameworks (PhD Thesis, 2020).
• Mbah M, ‘Judicial interpretation of the notion of ‘grave professional misconduct’ in public procurement: Lessons for contracting authorities and suppliers’ (2017) European School of Law Journal, 1-15.
• Mbah M, ‘When Two Becomes One’ (Procurement Week 2017, London, December 2016)

Dr Amanze is committed to delivering excellence in teaching and learning with passion and enthusiasm. At OU Law School, she is currently involved in the teaching of the following modules:

Undergraduate teaching

• W101 Introduction to Law
• W330 European Union Law
• W240 Business and Employment Law 
• W323 Business law and dispute resolution (SQE)

Postgraduate teaching

• W822 Business, human rights law and corporate social responsibility 

PhD Supervision 

• Efficiency and Effectiveness in Emergency Procurement (projected completion - 2026)

Grants 

• Project title: Gender responsive public procurement in Wales: A Scoping Research. Principal Investigator
• Project title: Black students’ perspectives on awarding gaps in the OU Law School: Causes and Remedies. Principal Investigator

• Employability Lead 2021-2022

External engagement 

• Guest lecture at Clifford University, Nigeria, June 2023

Dr Amanze has collaborated with external colleagues in projects financed by the World Bank Group, Inter-America Development Bank and the European Union. Her consultancy experience expands to individual countries such as Nigeria, Bahamas, Barbados, Ghana, Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.  She regularly seeks donor consultancy opportunities and is working with a consultancy consortium led by HelpUsTrade Ltd in bidding for projects.  Some of the recent projects Miriam has completed includes:

• Affinity - Virtual Reality Hate Crime Training' Project,  UK Police force, 2020: The delivery of immersive Virtual Reality (VR) training programme to radically transform the operational performance of over 2000 front-line police officers on a topic of national importance.
• Institutional Development and Procurement Training, 2019 – 2020: As part of this project, Miriam developed a procurement competency framework which outlined competencies, performance and organisational drivers that would enhance the efficient and effective delivery of procurement by procurement professionals across the country. Furthermore, Miriam led various training of trainers sessions that would enable Afghanistan procurement trainers to improve and transform their delivery of training materials to procurement professionals in the country. 
• Curriculum and training materials development, 2018: The project centred on developing a national public procurement training capacity-building programme to train over 10,000 civil servants over a 5-year period.
• Public Procurement Competency and Skills Framework 2020 - 2017. Working under the supervision of the lead consultant in various projects, Miriam has been responsible for developing the Procurement Competency and Skills Framework for three countries.