• Sub-Saharan Africa
• Analysis, scores and results
• African Peer Review Mechanism

Sub-Saharan Africa

The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) has not generated a national conversation in South Africa. This paper investigates the reasons for this failure of the APRM.

Among the reasons, the author argues, is the failure of the citizens to seize the opportunity as also the media’s neglect of the APRM. The peer review process was intended to involve millions of people in a frank assessment of each participating country’s achievements and failings. But in South Africa, it was crafted without significant civil society input. The media largely ignored the process.

The author points out that Public Service and Administration Minister centralised the review process in her office. It was inevitable then that the Country Self-Assessment Report (CSAR) would be overwhelmingly influenced by the government’s analysis and views.

Although APRM has the potential to become an important vehicle for broad-based policy review and development, it has not gained that status because of the government’s determination to dominate and drive the process.

Governments are more likely to nurture a sustained interest in the process if it is more transparent and if they are less defensive. Merely denying the experience or perceptions of the public and civil society, the author concludes, will not deliver a more comfortable reality.

The author suggests that:

• The APRM Secretariat should engage the media to popularise the process since the media, rather than brochures or radio jingles, is the most effective mechanism to spread information about the review process
  
• The Secretariat needs to develop a more effective and, most importantly, responsive media team
  
• Civil society organisations and interested NGOs need to establish their independence from the government team and claim their right to speak out; and
  
• Civil society groups should pick causes and issues that have the potential to capture the attention of the media and make focused presentations on them.
  

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