THE APRM 10 YEARS AFTER: REVIEWING A DECADE OF PEER LEARNING AND PROJECTING A FUTURE DEVELOPMENTAL GOVERNANCE OF AFRICA.

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1 THE APRM 10 YEARS AFTER: REVIEWING A DECADE OF PEER LEARNING AND PROJECTING A FUTURE DEVELOPMENTAL GOVERNANCE OF AFRICA. I- THE RAISON D ÊTRE OF THE APRM a- The APRM is celebrating its 10th year at a time when we are also commemorating the 50th anniversary of the OAU/AU. The concommittance of the two events warrants us to look back at what has been achieved and project a future for the APRM, and how it contributes to enhanced governance in Africa, in this year that the African Union Commission has dedicated to 'Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance. b- When the APRM founding fathers Presidents Mbeki, Obasanjo, Buteflika, Mubarack began this journey in March 2003, their ambition was to have a unique and innovative mechanism promoting participatory processes for the adoption of policies, standards and practices that nurture political stability, high economic growth, and sustainable development; as well as accelerated sub-regional and continent-wide economic integration through the sharing of experience, learning from best practices, identification of gaps and capacity development for African States, institutions and citizens. The Peer Review concept started out as a unique attempt that captured the admiration of many. Many other mechanisms have tried to copy the idea as a model for monitoring (such as the United Nations Convention Against Corruption). c- They saw the APRM, therefore, as a mechanism with three prongs: the evaluative, operational and cognitive prongs. It was expected to place citizens at the heart of governance in African countries, and particularly to ensure their leaders are accountable to them. It was also supposed to be the tool and vehicle for a new developmental governance project, designed by Africans for Africans. II- THE ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE APRM d- The APRM represents the most credible litmus test of the dynamic of governance in Africa since Currently, 33 countries have voluntarily acceded to the APRM. These countries are: Algeria, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia. On 26 January 2013, Tunisia and Chad signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the Technical Assessment Missions. e- Seventeen (17) of these countries have completed their self-assessment exercise and have been peer-reviewed by the Forum of Heads of State and Government. They are: Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya, South Africa, Algeria, Benin, Uganda, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mozambique, Lesotho, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Tanzania. 1

2 f- The benefits derived from the APRM cannot be overemphasized. The Mechanism has opened up the political space for citizens participation in policy debates, fostered national dialogue, increased advocacy for good governance and improved service delivery. In some countries, its findings have warned of impending crises, and indeed when crises erupted, APRM findings provided a useful framework for reform. The APRM has created a platform for African peer learning and sharing of experiences and best practices. g- Some of the lessons learned from the first years of implementation can be summarized as follows: Political commitment is central to the success of the review pioneer country reviews have demonstrated that political backing and leadership, without interference, is central to the success of the APRM Review. It often ensures openness to the list of issues raised during the country review process and ensures commitment to the implementation of the subsequent APRM Plan of Action. Political commitment is also important in accelerating the pace of review once the country has signed up to the APRM. The Examples of Ghana and Mauritius confirm this lesson. Ownership by a diversity of actors creates potential for fostering domestically driven dynamics of societal change and governance reform The first wave of country reviews has demonstrated that the APRM has the potential to generate rich and concrete national dialogue. This is often the result of openness to include a multiplicity of actors beyond the executive, such as civil society organizations and parliaments. In some of the reviewed countries a strong civil society voice emerged and made an impact on the content of the country self-assessment report therefore ensuring a national ownership of the process and the outcome of the APRM. However, although consultations with civil society organizations and parliaments have been conducted they did have some limitations in some countries (i.e. the lack of information to allow actors to play a role from an informed position or a lack of organized civil society). More information is necessary to further demystify the APRM at national, regional and continental levels As noted by a number of actors, the APRM is a complicated process that is often misunderstood or unknown to many actors, beyond governments. Availability of information and a deeper understanding of the APRM could have been improved in some countries in order to ensure wider participation. To some critics, the APRM has not yielded the much expected change in governance and improved service delivery to citizens. Indeed, while a lot has been achieved in terms of countries that have voluntarily joined and agreed to subject themselves to peer review, much remains to be done in the areas of increasing public awareness, ensuring national ownership, an inclusive participatory process for all key stakeholders, and an effective implementation of the recommendations emanating from the reviews. 2

3 Monitoring and evaluation is important One of the key outputs of the APRM process is a National Plan of Action (PoA), which attempts to address the weaknesses identified in the Country Review Report. It is also the central document that would ensure that the ideals of the APRM and the governance standards are implemented. Indeed, the cases of Kenya and South Africa have demonstrated that monitoring the implementation of the PoA is important. Both countries were faced with conflicts already predicted by their respective APRM reports (in the case of Kenya it was the election crisis in 2008 and in South Africa it was xenophobia which led to a series of attacks across the country between April and May 2008). However, the monitoring of the implementation of the PoA has not been consistently done besides countries submitting their progress reports on irregular basis due to a number of reasons particularly the lack of substantive ressources both domestic and from partners to finance it. The role of the different national, regional and continental stakeholders in supporting the monitoring exercise by providing their own contributions is therefore important. The relationship between the APRM and other national plans has not always been optimal one of the lessons learned in the development and implementation of the NPoA is that it is difficult to implement plans that are not related to other national plans and as a result have no clear source of funding. This hinders the long-term sustainability of the APRM as it may result in a loss of faith in what the process can deliver post-revue. As a result questions of alignment and complementarity with existing national plans are a central challenges to the future of the process. The need to position the APRM within the broader framework of African Governance Architecture Although the APRM was created as a central engine of the African Governance Architecture it remains difficult to see how it relates to other Pan-African and regional governance institutions. This is also related to the weak capacity of some of the continental bodies to discuss the APRM. For instance, the Pan African Parliament (PAP) has not regularly reviewed the APRM Country Review Reports as stipulated in the APRM Base Document due to capacity constrains. The ECOSOCC has also not done so given its focus on its own institutional development. Now that these bodies are more established it can be enriching to create links between them and the APRM. h- As the APRM marks its 10th Anniversary, it is imperative to reflect on the challenges it is facing with a view to improving its tools and processes and enhancing its effectiveness over the next decade. III- THE CHALLENGES i- It should be remembered that the APRM process came in as a mechanism twinned with the NEPAD. Economic Development and the use of FDA always encountered interrogations about governance. So the APRM was conceived. Its success was largely due to the political will of a few African leaders who gave traction to the process in material terms and morally too. Those who were the first to join the process did help to anchor the practice and demystify it. 3

4 j- However the intensive nature of the pressure to be part of the process, slowly started to make joining the process an end in itself as opposed to being a means to an end. The NPoAs that were developed slowly became less and less realistic as some thought that NPoAs provided the panacea that would attract FDA. NEPAD itself slackened, and the APR process that was to be reviewed after 5 years did not get reviewed. The internal governance of the process itself received less and less attention. The result was the inevitable. The result was inevitable. NEPAD has not delivered optimally and was integrated into the AU. The process seemed then to have suddenly been strengthened. k- The APRM itself, with the coming into power of many new leaders and the gradual demystification of the exercise as not being some sort of evaluation for the purposes of producing a scorecard, has now lost its appeal, including to several civil society organisations in African countries, which are now focusing on the ratification and implementation of the legal instruments of the African Union, such as the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance and the African Charter on the Values and Principles of Public Service and Administration. l- Looking ahead, it is well and good to applaud the moves to integrate the APRM process into the AU and maintain its autonomy. It should go back to its original idea as being twinned with NEPAD and staying its course as the moral conscience of our development mechanisms. Great strides have been made in putting the internal governance of the APRM together. But the internal governance of the APR itself still has several challenges. In this regard, care must be taken to insure the coherence of the management of the migration of the APRM into the AU and to maintain the link between APRM and NEPAD. m- The management of the transition within the Forum, the Panel and the Secretariat has been challenging. This has led to the institutionalization of the Committee of Focal Points into a management structure of the APRM. The Focal points were there to facilitate the comprehension of the goings on by the members of the Forum. By becoming a structure itself, without any clear governance rules, the danger is that it could slowly put itself in the place of the Forum and reduce the involvement of the Peers themselves in the process. Finally, the operation of the Panel asks several issues:how the members should be designated? How long their mandate should last? What Is the optimal duration of the Mandate of the Chairperson of the Panel? will it be able to be renewed ou should we observe a principle of rotation? We need to establish clear and precise governance procedures for each institutional level of the APRM. Otherwise, the risk is that its governability will be weakened. The fact that the Chair of NEPAD, President Macky Sall of Senegal, was forced to make the comment that "as a mechanism on governance, the APRM should practice what it preaches", is very narrative of the present predicament. 4

5 n- The advent of the AU and the objective of making the continental organization people-driven require a more appropriate framework for involving Civil Society. This should be coupled with a more integrated approach to the implementation of several novel instruments and charters of the African Union. The migration into the African Union might help to jump-start this process. It will immediately lead to the development of a sustainable and coherent process in the sharing of APRM reports and the follow-up process of the NPoAs. o- If the APRM process is not retooled and made more robust, transparent and independent, then we run the risk of debating about the management of the process without ever really embarking on the process itself. An evitable tool in this new outlook is the involvement of Non-State Actors and the rationalization of the same. Three types of challenges can be identified as facing the new generation of APRM reviews; namely process, content, and coordination. Process-related challenges - How to widen and improve the quality of participation? And how to better monitor implementation? One of the lessons learned highlights the need to include a wide range of actors in the APRM process in order to ensure its inclusiveness (beyond executive structures) and the richness of its output. This will need to be accompanied with a wide range of measures including the adequate provision of information and a space to dialogue on the different aspects of the APRM review both process- and content-related. Furthermore the APRM will need to focus on monitoring. Developing a solid monitoring mechanism for the implementation of the APRM is one of the key challenges to ensure that the exercise is not a once off activity. Monitoring can be conducted by a variety of actors at different levels, from local to continental including governmental and Non States actors, and by using robust and credible indicators, as the Ibrahim Index of Governance in Africa - wich will strengthen the evaluative and prospective dimensions of the APRM. Coherence with national plans and international partners support The APRM will need to ensure a better link with other national programs. This is a delicate challenge to address since it is not only dependent on the will of the country but also on actions of international partners. For example, many national development programs rely on funding international resources while the National Action Plan resulting from the unique participatory, inclusive and legitimate process does not benefit from this type of funding and is therefore often blocked in its implementation. It is therefore important to align all national development plans on the APRM National Plan of Action. However, we must admit here that discussions may be required between countries highly dependent of aid (which is the case for the vast majority of signatories APRM) and their partners to do so. In any event, an emphasis must necessarily be on the mobilization of domestic resources - including those from the fight against illicit financial flows - for the financing of the APRM National Action Plan by specifically African resources. 5

6 Coordination articulating the relationship between the different levels of governance in order to ensure coordination and complementarity is one of the challenges ahead. Here, the relationship between the APRM and the different governance actors at national level (i.e. parliaments and Non States Actors), regional (RECs, Regional parliaments) and continental (the different AU governance organs) will ensure that the multi-faceted nature of governance is fully reflected in the APRM. III- THE ROLE AND PLACE OF NSAs. p- This is objectively the complex and simple situation in which we find ourselves. The APRM is at a turning point in its history and we must find ways for its institutional consolidation and sustainability. How do we go about it? What role and place do we assign to Non-State actors in these processes, and how do we enhance the APRM s attractiveness to African countries? q- We need to answer these questions with the new outlook on State-society relations in Africa, which the APRM partly developed, in order to effect a true paradigm shift in the way Non-State Actors participate in the process. The APRM should indeed go beyond Civil Society Organisations and include all Non-State Actors, based on the principles of selectivity and value addition. All Non-State Actors (including Civil Society Organisations, local authorities, women and young organizations, other vulnerable populations organizations, etc ) would not participate in the APRM process in the same manner. Each organisation should identify where its strengths are relevant to the process, and harness its resources in the service of the APRM. Some NSAs may want to be involved in the awareness raising phase, while others would be more useful in the self-assessment exercise and further during the implementation of the NPoAs. We can explore several possibilities in this regard. r- First, Non-State Actors including civil society organisations should nurture advocacy for the ratification of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance by all Member States of the APRM process. Although these are two different mechanisms, they are complementary in the institutionalization of developmental governance in Africa, and the interrelationship between States Parties to the Charter and the APRM Member States will facilitate the monitoring and evaluation of compliance with their requirements. s- Secondly, Non-State Actors should strengthen and broaden their initiatives for awareness and dissemination of the APRM among the people in countries that are not yet members, as well as those in the countries that have been peer-reviewed, through the monitoring and evaluation of the recommendations of the National Programmes of Action (NPoAs). Programmes for experience sharing and peer learning among Non-State Actors should be developed in this regard. At the same time, these latter should nurture advocacy to development partners for them to align their own governance and development programmes with the National Action Plans, which are the only legitimate and appropriate documents developed in a participatory manner by these countries. 6

7 t- Non-States Actors can make their mark in the consultation process, especially through written or oral submissions that can inform and influence by lobbying to ensure that their key issues feature in the Countries Reviews Reports and NPoAs. u- Organized NSAs can easily designate their representatives to be part of the National Governing council or National Commissions. In doing so, the views of various third sectors actors can be expressed and taken into account. v- Engaged and relevant Non-State Actors could also serve as 'honest brokers' between the APRM and the African Union Commission, particularly in the African Governance Architecture and its enforcement mechanism, the African Governance Platform. w Finally, the APRM Secretariat and the Panel of Eminent Persons should develop a better strategy for informing Non-State Actors on the institutional trends and dynamics in this process. This may be by launching a monthly newsletter for Non-States Actors and, subsequently, creating an interactive forum on the APRM website. A think tank like the AGI and organisations such as SAIIA, EISA, AFRIMAP and OXFAM have a major role to play in not only disseminating the work of the APRM, but also in deepening reflection on some critical cross-cutting and overarching issues that the all-embracing nature of the APRM process may not make it possible to explore. This could be achieved by providing platforms where various actors engage on these issues and make recommendations to be considered by APRM continental bodies. x- The paradigm shift that we are advocating in Non-State Actors role in the APRM process would enable them to act as the key agents of change in developmental governance in Africa: by convincing governments to engage in the process; ensuring that the commitments in the National Programmes of Action are feasible, applicable and implemented; making sure that background information on the process is disseminated to all the citizens of States Parties to whom their governments and the organs of the APRM are accountable. y- The challenge is to make Non-State Actors work alongside State Actors as real co-actors in the APRM process with the joint responsibility of ensuring the process meets its targets for improving the welfare of citizens in an environment of peace and security. This will require a lot of work in terms of developing capacity for NSAs, including civil society, and bringing them up to speed. But AGI have no doubt that they have abilities in this area, given the vitality they have always displayed. 7

8 The challenge is also to propose forward-looking and innovative solutions to the issues and real barriers keeping the States and peoples of Africa from instituting effective and efficient developmental governance, such as: 1. Initiating forward-looking African thinking on the MDGs and on the importance of Governance in the post-2015 agenda; 2. Interrogating the financing of development in Africa, with a particular emphasis on the fight against illicit financial flows and on the governance of natural resources; 3. Reflecting on a concrete and real public administration reforms including the reinforcement of Decentralization and a robust and owndrived planification - for a developmental State in Africa; 4. Creating new components such as the governance of armies, that cannot be separated from demo cratic governance; 5. Positioning the APRM resolutely within the African Governance Architecture and the African Governance Platform as the landmark instrument for participatory evaluation of governance in African countries. z- The expectations from the APRM remain high. AGI is sure they will be met, looking at the mobilization around this innovative and unique African Tool during this anniversary. President of the AGI Governing Board Mr. Abdoulie Janneh : a.janneh@iag-agi.org AGI Executive Director Prof. Adebayo Olukoshi : Adebayo.Olukoshi@iag-agi.org AGI Program Coordinator Maurice Enguéléguélé: me@iag-agi.org All requests for the reproduction of this document, either in whole or in part, should be addressed to the AGI Information and Communication Department: Mr. Thierry Sanzhie Bokally-Information Officer: tsb@iag-agi.org Mrs Maty N. Cisse-Project Associate: mnc@iag-agi.org Institut Africain de la Gouvernance - Africa Governance Institute Sotrac Mermoz Sipres, N 32 - Dakar Sénégal Tél : (221) Fax : (221) iag-agi@iag-agi.org ; 8