PRETORIA – President Cyril Ramaphosa has officially assumed the chairmanship of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) – the self-assessment and monitoring mechanism of the African Union (AU), the presidency said on Sunday.
Established in 2003, the APRM is a specialised agency of the AU that serves as a platform for, among others, sharing experiences and reinforcing best practices for political stability, accelerated economic growth, and regional and continental integration, as well as sustainable development, the presidency said in a statement.
It further sought to foster change in underlying deficiencies in governance and socio-economic development processes among member states.
As chairman, Ramaphosa would serve a term of two years from 2020 to 2022. He took over the APRM leadership at a critical time following the recent expansion of its mandate to include the monitoring of the implementation of Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Agenda 2030 on sustainable development goals.
The 32nd AU Summit resolved that all members reposition the APRM at the centre of continental efforts to deepen democracy and good governance. Initially established as a mutually agreed instrument to which member states could voluntarily accede, the APRM had 37 members to date, the presidency said.
In his acceptance speech on Saturday at the 33rd AU Summit currently under way in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, Ramaphosa echoed the goal of the AU Assembly to achieve universal accession to the APRM by 2023. He called for more AU members to join the mechanism to jointly “pursue innovations that will catalyse the positive transformation of the continent”.
The APRM carries out, in fulfilment of its mandate, country reviews. The base review is undertaken once a country joins the APRM, a periodic review is carried out very four years, and member countries may also request a review outside of the mandate review.
The 29th session of the APRM on Sunday for the first time received targeted reviews – reviews commissioned by the APRM – which included reviews on youth unemployment in Namibia, fiscal decentralisation in Djibouti, and the contribution of tourism to the economy of Zambia. A country review report was also tabled on Egypt.
Ramaphosa had encouraged countries that had undergone the review process to implement the recommendations of the reports, saying they were key to achieving the much needed impact on the continent, the presidency said.
African News Agency (ANA)
