APRM Pioneer Countries make Progress on implementing their National Program of Action (NPoA)

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) represents a new and clear departure for African Governance systems. Its ultimate goal is to help improve and foster good governance within African countries by promoting political stability, economic growth, sustainable development and integration through sharing of best practices. Above all, the APRM presents an unprecedented opportunity to African countries to experiment with a new approach to governance whereby policy-reform is essentially driven by domestic constituents rather than externally driven accountability to development partners, a process that have so far proven to be insufficient or ineffective.

It is in this context that those African countries that have fully completed the APRM process are monitoring and implementing their respective National Program of Actions (NPoA), which is the final output of the APRM process in general. The NPoA is the agreed priorities, key governance issues and challenges identified by the APRM Panel of Eminent Persons as requiring redress in their final report of the countries that have been reviewed. In many instances, they complement and add value to the existing national development strategies, albeit from the point of view of a long and consultative process with national stakeholders. In essence, the APRM-PoA of action shows the demand-side of policy reform agenda in Africa. It provides a broad framework for stakeholders to hold government accountable for delivering on existing development strategies. The demand-side of policy reform is often missing from national development strategies, including the Poverty Reduction Strategy (PRS). In most of the APRM participating countries, the monitoring of the PoA implementation is to be undertaken by the National Governing Councils or the National Commissions that oversaw the implementation of the APRM process.

ECA, together with other strategic partners, has been facilitating dialogues among the APRM pioneer countries – Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya – with a view to assisting them in identifying a common framework for monitoring and evaluating the NPoA, as well as identifying financing modalities of supporting their development goals in the respective programs of action. This report will provide a profile of the progress being made by each of the pioneering countries in terms of how effective the NPoA is providing an impetus for rapid policy reform and enhancement in their governance systems. Such is the ultimate value of the APRM process and its impact on Africa's new and innovative approaches to good governance.

APRM pioneer countries: Ghana........ Rwanda......Kenya