APRM needs to be simplified

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    Participants in a seminar in Abuja reviewing the implementation of the African Peer Review Mechanism said the process should be simplified to make it viable. Such a move will enable all African countries that have acceded to the process to meet their timelines.


    According to the participants, the four thematic areas — preparation of the plan of action, the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms and the questionnaire — are making it difficult for implementing countries to undertake the process effectively.

    A participant from Kenya, Muratha Kinuthia, said the 88-point questionnaire, must be simplified to cater for all groups that are to take part in the process.

    “It should be broken into levels from students in secondary schools to professors at the university.”

    He suggested that sample questionnaires from countries that have been reviewed should be made available to countries in waiting to speed up the procedure.

    Ambassador Isaac Aluko-Olukun from Nigeria called on the countries that have been reviewed to recommend how to simplify the APRM process in order to meet the recommendation of speedy implementation as spelt out during the sixth African governance forum held in Kigali, Rwanda, in May this year.

    “Discussing thematic areas with illiterate households in Nigeria is time consuming,” he said adding that without simplification, it will be difficult for African countries that are under review to complete the process.

    However NEPAD General Manager, Communications and Marketing, Thaninga Shope-Linney, said the APRM document is location-specific and not generic. It should be tailored according to the environment of the country involved.

    “Take the document and customise it,” she said. “It cannot be applicable to each and every country as it is only for guidance. There is no way you can have one document that caters for all African countries.”

    She urged African nations to be careful with groups that are ready to use economic power to take over and distort the APRM process.

    Source : nepad news, novembre 3, 2006

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    52 COMMENTS

    50. I hadn’t considered how the APRM’s own complexity could be what keeps countries from fully engaging with it. If the reporting and review stages were less of a bureaucratic hurdle, more leaders might actually follow through on the recommendations. That simplification seems like the real first step.

    51. The push for simplification makes me think of how the UN’s Universal Periodic Review works—less paperwork, more focused dialogue. If the APRM borrowed that lighter structure, maybe more states would see it as an opportunity rather than a burden. Is that where the reform discussion is heading?

      nano-bananapro

    52. Simpler does sound appealing, but is the main obstacle really the paperwork? Most peer review mechanisms struggle more with follow-up and political will than with the size of the questionnaires. If member states don’t buy into the process, a lighter framework might just produce faster but weaker reviews.

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