This article was written by Jerry Okungu on July 15, 2005

As Kenya prepares itself to be evaluated under NEPAD’s African Peer Review Mechanism, Jerry Okungu explains the purpose of review mechanism and points out that “the biggest challenge that NEPAD and the APRM should deal with in Africa is how to accelerate and give momentum to the continent’s reform and development agenda.”

As the G8 meeting held last week takes a back seat in the world’s news networks, here at home, Kenyans are bracing for their first Peer Review Process, an activity under the New Partnership for African development. This mechanism will make it possible for African countries that have subscribed to it to be assessed on their projected development goals as per their national policy programmes. The main purpose of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is to foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that will lead to political stability, high economic grown, sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration through sharing of experiences and reinforcing successful best practices, identifying deficiencies and assessing the needs for capacity building for each participating country.

Like in all countries participating in the APRM, if carried out properly, the process should see improved governance for sustainable development in Kenya through review and adoption of policies and practices that will conform to the agreed values, codes and standards contained in the Declaration on Democracy, Corporate, Political and Economic Governance of the African Union.

Here in Kenya, a countrywide APRM activity has been activated that will see various drivers and stake-holders exchange views and opinions on the NEPAD-APRM process in eight provincial centers. The workshops have been designed to be all-inclusive in terms of provincial districts and various interest groups like the civil society, religious organisations, trade unions, the business community, NGOs, the political class, civic leaders and the public service.

The APRM itself has many phases of involvement. First there are the lead technical experts whose job will be to deal with the four areas that require technical expertise. Their primary role has been to develop various research instruments and supervise the fieldwork, gather data, analyze and produce a report on Kenya’s performance in the areas stated above. It is the report emanating from this field research that will guide the external panel of experts, led by H E Graca Machel into gauging Kenya’s reform agenda against the standards, values and codes set out by the African Union under its Declaration on Democracy, Corporate, Political and Economic Governance. Most Kenyans must be wondering what NEPAD is all about.

Traditionally, Africa’s development partners have been the wealthy nations of the West, most of whom colonised the continent in the past, and a few more advanced nations from the East whose interest in Africa has been more ideological than commercial. From the West, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium and Portugal readily come to mind. Others are United States, Canada and Australia, themselves former colonies of Great Britain. From East Europe we have had USSR, former super power during the cold war, China, Japan and a handful of East European states that used to revolve around the red bare.

Apart from bilateral trade and donor funding from the rich nations direct to their African clients, the same wealthy nations have over time set up funding and lending institutions that have grown over time into empires of their own. Such institutions that readily come to mind in the area of development are DFID of Britain, USAID of the USA, SIDA of Sweden, CIDA of Canada, GTZ of Germany, The World Bank and the IMF among others.

What NEPAD is championing is the philosophy of home grown partnerships as the primary concern as opposed to total dependence on foreign partners whose interests and priorities may not necessarily rank Africa’s issues on the top of their agenda. More so, the politics of foreign aid has become so lethal in recent years that some poor nations of the world have had their lifelines cut off due to political differences with the donor nations.

In creating NEPAD, African nations are being encouraged to cultivate domestic partnerships before venturing out. The more reason governments in Africa are being asked to rope in the private sector, the civil society, religious organisations, NGOs and the political class to join hands together and formulate policies that work well for their conditions. Involving all aspects of the society in policy formulation empowers every citizen and in the process every one owns the development process. The biggest challenge that NEPAD and the APRM should deal with in Africa is how to accelerate and give momentum to the continent’s reform and development agenda.

Jerry Okungu is the executive director of Infotrack and consulting

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