Institution building
The APRM A case study in democratic institution building?
An institutional analysis of APRM
Authors:
A.B. Chikwanha
Publisher:
Institute for Security Studies, South Africa, 2007
The New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and the Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) arose out of the need to attend to the sluggish democratic transitions in Africa as well as the stagnation of African development in general.
This paper uses an institutional approach in analysing the progress made by the APRM across the currently signed up countries. Scrutinising the APRM processes, the authors argue that African leaders and governments are in the position of gate-keeper in this review exercise, and hence meaningful progress will be difficult to achieve within a reasonable and workable time period.
The likely undesirable result is that the APRM, though designed to be a continuous activity, risks becoming moribund in the long run. It is already showing symptoms of becoming ensnared in the usual bureaucratic tangles and inertia that have plagued the continent since decolonisation. Though a worthwhile exercise in political accountability and institution building, scarce resources have been wasted by some of the countries involved as hesitancy by both political and technical staff takes its toll.
The second argument is that both democracy and dialoguing need rules that guide actions, and the APRM has left too many loose ends. Countries up for review are still ‘muddling through’as there are many grey areas that each country has to navigate on its own.
