Resumen de Governing Through Peer Review: Can NEPAD's African Peer Review Mechanism Make a difference?
James Busumtwi-Sam, Denis Dogah
In 2001, African leaders made a commitment to improving political and economic governance under the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD). Among other aims, NEPAD seeks to promote governance reforms on African terms that will advance opportunities for sustainable development in the region. As part of this new commitment, member states of the African Union (AU) instituted a collective self-monitoring mechanism under the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). As part of its structure, mandate, and process, the APRM seeks to subject domestic governance systems in Africa to peer review in the thematic areas of democracy and good governance, economic, corporate governance and socio-economic development. While optimists are hopeful about the ability of this voluntary self-governing framework to propel governance reforms and bolster prospects for democracy, political governance and accountability in Africa, pessimists remain skeptical about the extent to which the APRM can lead to meaningful governance reforms in a continent supposedly riddled with a �culture of corruption�, neo-patrimonial politics and political instability. We argue that in spite of its shortcomings, the APRM constitutes an important normative shift in governance systems in Africa. The APRM engages African states in a strategic long-term common partnership, in which they forgo some of the traditional privileges of sovereign power, open up their domestic polices to scrutiny by their peers, and share many governmental activities with their neighbors. The apparent willingness to confront domestic political and economic issues in the AU-NEPAD-nexus represents a significant change in the norms of African governance, statehood and diplomacy institutionalized in the immediate post-colonial era. Although far from being an unqualified success, the APRM has the potential to promote and reinforce higher governance standards in Africa, and may provide lessons for other Global South states in Asia, and Latin America.
