APRM launches Uganda targeted review, unveils prelim findings of Nigeria’s 2nd review

An African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) delegation is currently in Uganda for the conduct of a targeted review in the country focused on three thematic clusters, namely Underdevelopment of Agriculture; Unresponsive Civil Service; and Underdevelopment of Infrastructure.

Other than its mandated reviews, APRM conducts targeted reviews on specific governance areas upon a request by an APRM member country. The APRM delegation is led by Bishop Dinis Sengulane Salamao, the APRM Panel of Eminent Persons member in charge of Uganda.

A press statement by the APRM says the purpose of its targeted review is to provide African countries “an independent, credible and legitimate analyses of and solutions to a specific question, needed to address the governance and developmental challenges pertaining to the question.”  Through the targeted review, the Mechanism intends to help the countries address their governance and development challenges.

The APRM hopes the targeted reviews which provide “an in-depth, focused analysis of key socio-economic and political governance questions” will strengthen engagement between policymakers and the representatives of the donor community, private sector and civil society. Additionally, the Mechanism believes targeted reviews would help revive the APRM process in APRM countries, encourage non-APRM countries to accede to the Mechanism as well as boosting APRM’s value-addition to governance and development on the continent.

In addition to visits to various regions of Uganda for consultations including rural areas, APRM’s targeted review mission, which will last from 18 October to 01 November 2021, entails consultations with officials from public sector, civil societies and private sector. Subsequently, the mission’s findings would inform donors’ development interventions – against the earlier practice of imposing non-African solutions to African problems which had thus far proven fruitless.

In a related development, the APRM had early October undertook a mission to Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, for a series of stakeholder consultations and debriefing to the Nigerian authorities about the preliminary findings of the country’ second review process launched in July. The APRM delegation which was led by Dr. Aboulie Janneh, APR Panel member in charge of Nigeria, paid a courtesy call on H.E.  Boss Mustapha, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), to debrief him on the preliminary findings of Nigeria’s second review.

While briefing SGF Mustapha, Dr Janneh said the findings of the country review mission were the true reflection of nationwide consultations held by the Country Review Team in Abuja and across the 6 geo-political zones of the country. He congratulated Nigeria for the best practices identified by the review team, encouraging the country to address findings of the review team such as insecurity, unemployment, early child marriages, non-payment of pension funds, among others.

Having welcomed the findings, SGF Mustapha assured the APRM delegation of Nigeria’s commitment to commence immediate implementation of the National Programme of Action (NPoA) resulting from the country review mission. The SGF also pledged to ensure the capacitation of APRM’s national structures to ensure continuous internal peer review process in Nigeria, saying the identified challenges were already part of the Nigerian government’s nine (9) priority areas.