AU’s APRM Forum starts Thursday in Sharm El-Sheikh
Bassem Aly in Sharm El-Sheikh, Thursday 4 Apr 2019
The forum aims to further AU efforts to instill and develop best practices and methodologies of good governance on the African continent


The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), a specialised agency of the African Union (AU) that focuses on good governance in Africa, will launch its Annual Methodology Forum on Thursday in Sharm El-Sheikh.

The event (4-5 April) will be attended by a number of diplomats, government representatives and APRM representatives from across Africa. Academic, corporate, political and economic experts on governance will also attend the forum.

The APRM is one out of three key activities that currently taking place in the Red Sea city.

From 1-3 April, a series of closed technical meetings took place to discuss the framework, guidelines and provisions of the APRM statutory meetings.

On 6 April, the Egyptian government and the APRM will jointly commemorate the 16thanniversary of the establishment of the organisation at the 1stForum on Governance and Development in Africa, which will also be attended by government officials and representatives and non-state participants.

In July 2002, the process towards founding the APRM started with the Declaration on the Implementation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development adopted by the inaugural session of the assembly of the African Union in Durban, South Africa.

The declaration "establishes the APRM as a country-self assessment and peer review mechanism, conceived and led by Africans to undertake governance assessments.”

Those assessments involve areas of democracy and political governance, economic governance, corporate governance and sustainable socio-economic development.

The APRM defines itself as “an organisation of the African Union that aims to encourage the adoption of policies, standards and best practices that lead to good governance”.

In July 2014, the APRM was integrated into the AU at the 23rdOrdinary Session of the Assembly that was held in Malabo in Equatorial Guinea.

The APRM Forum, in January 2016, decided to revitalise the APRM during a special summit in Addis Ababa, announcing six priority areas, including “revisiting the philosophy of the APRM,' “revising the review methodology,” and “ensuring compliance with APRM principles.”

To meet its objectives, the APRM decided in March to focus on methodology during an expert group meeting that was also held in Addis Ababa. The APRM Forum in Sharm El-Sheikh seeks to examine “the ideation of governance and related parameters” and the “integrity and effectiveness of APRM processes and tools for delivery of the APRM mandate.”

The forum will also discuss a number of topics that are directly related to governance on the continent, such as migration, internal displacement, gender issues, international credit rating agencies in Africa, and access to global capital and sovereign credit.

Last year’s APRM forum, held in Kigali in Rwanda, offered a number of recommendations. Among them was to “broaden participation,” “ensure gender balance," “standardise National Programs of Action (NPoA)," “enhance data integrity," “undertake regular evaluation of member states in transformative leadership,” and “retain voluntary accession.”

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/329338.aspx