Henning Melber assesses the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) and its associated African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) in relation to African leadership. While warning against praising premature trends and noting some setbacks, he maintains that there has been a greater willingness of leaders to step aside – an improvement from the “generation of despots heading cleptocratic regimes that used to be the order of the day in many more countries”.

Until recently the principle of national sovereignty and non-intervention into the affairs of other African states guided the official norm of the Organisation of African Union (OAU). In contrast, the African Union (AU) in its Constitutive Act signalled a shift in the paradigm towards increased collective responsibility in crucial matters of human (and state) security. Heads of governments are since empowered to agree collectively on intervention into internal affairs of member countries under particularly grave circumstances. This newly introduced and practically enforced principle of collective responsibility has in the last years already borne fruits in several cases, where African leaders in bi- and multilateral efforts resumed mediating roles in controlling and reducing conflicts or even bringing them to an end.

The new political will has also manifested itself in the development of The New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) with a hitherto unprecedented emphasis within formulated programmatic African strategies on democracy, human rights and good governance as substantive elements for socio-economic development. While NEPAD has in the meantime been adopted as the economic programme of the AU, it should not be lost sight of the fact that it was (and should remain) far more than that.

The perspective offered by NEPAD was already in its infant stages welcomed by external partners - notably the G 7/8 and the EU - in support of African efforts towards development, including concerted arrangements to enhance peace and security. The NEPAD architects were, so to say, able to cash in on a confidence and trust bonus based on the declared aims of the blue print they were selling – interestingly first abroad before doing so on the ‘home front’. Once embraced and approved by the AU, NEPAD’s role was internationally endorsed as Africa’s official development strategy through a resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2004.

Ever since its successful promotion and consolidation, however, NEPAD had to face the challenge that its rhetoric was measured against its real achievements so far – as well as its lack thereof. Those generally in support of NEPAD, who are prepared not to close both eyes in blind loyalty to romanticising Afro-optimism, will have to admit that the road is long and winding and that the realisation of the declared goals has not always produced convincing results - if any. The NEPAD architects are not composed of an alliance free of own interests and agendas. The failed litmus test of Zimbabwe is just one among the more prominent examples to illustrate the point. There is sufficient reason to limit the expectations to at best a cautious optimism.

The APRM
A marked new dimension introduced by NEPAD has more recently been the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). It took several stages with at times sensible and delicate negotiations (and a lot of compromises) from its original concept to its concretisation and ultimate first implementation. After all, the idea and its applicability signalled a final turning point in the common grounds of African continental cooperation. Although a voluntarily entered process, the APRM has a high degree of legitimacy for those countries prepared to undergo the assessment. It is hence an attractive opportunity to increase international reputation and to thereby secure additional external support for national policies.

The peer review process was widely welcomed and accompanied by rather high expectations. The APRM translation into a practical instrument, however, also showed the limits of designing, producing, and applying the tool. Many of the African governments preferred to keep a close control on the mandate and applicability of the APRM as well as the defined and agreed priorities of the assessments to be undertaken. Given their concern that the APRM might support undue interference and impose unwanted explorations upon those willing to undergo the review procedures, ownership of the process was transferred from the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) to the AU itself and hence incorporated into those structures composed by those now responsible for reviewing each other.

Furthermore, the APRM was not firmly rooted in a legally binding document such as a protocol.
The power of decision making and taking remains vested in the countries prepared to be reviewed, which casts doubts over the true degree of autonomous and independent reviewing. The review results will only be accessible with the consent and authorisation of the country reviewed. This means a high degree of control remains executed by those who try to prove their accountability to others. The legitimacy of such a limited and constrained fact-finding mission in cases of differences of opinion among the parties involved might be dubious.

The few experiences so far suggest that there are major variations in the permissiveness of the approach shown by those states and governments willing to enter the APRM procedures. At the beginning of 2006 close to 30 countries have registered for the APRM. This is a large number. But many haven’t done so yet, and some among them would be considered as problem cases. The APRM process has initiated during 2004 the first country missions (Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Rwanda) and prepared since then six further missions (Algeria, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal and South Africa). But little is so far known in terms of visible results, against which the countries subject to the review process could be measured.

Challenges
The APRM is supposed to be in the first place a tool designed for enhanced collective responsibility within the family of African countries. However, it will for obvious reasons become a criterion for measurement of the African governments’ performances in terms of good governance issues. There is no way to escape this perception and effect. The APRM therefore needs to consolidate further a highest possible degree of international credibility. This in turn requires clear guidelines securing transparency and accountability towards a wider community of interest groups and stakeholders – both at home and abroad.

The following pertinent issues remain to be addressed:

- The direct and open involvement of non-state actors in the process (churches, trade unions, universities, the private sector, independent media and many other civil society organisations and advocacy groups representing both mainstream and minority interests in the political, cultural and economic spheres) would add to the credibility and legitimacy and would especially enlarge the ownership over the process.

- The unsolved challenge remains of how governments in non-compliance with fundamental principles of good governance are treated within the AU and by its member states. After all, the APRM is a voluntary exercise, controlled mainly by those under review, and with results shared only on a consensual basis. This in itself reduces differences in opinion over good governance matters to undisclosed draft statements. But those not willing to undergo the APRM will avoid even the process of seeking an acceptable formula with those supposed to make the assessment.

Some of the questions resulting from this current state of affairs include:

- What then is the real progress (as measured against the rhetoric or lip-service) in terms of collective responsibility and common denominators for joint positions and actions resulting thereof?

- To what extent constitutes the APRM more than a club of mutually adoring, enlightened actors who are able to read the signs of the time without abandoning their policies in non-compliance with the principles suggested to guide good governance notions?

- How can the APRM help to separate pseudo-legality (aiming to create the misleading impression that everything is sanctioned by law – even the unethical and immoral – and hence formally in order) from serious efforts to improve good governance, which deserve the full support from all interested in political and socio-economic progress?

- What role should donor countries play vis-à-vis the continentally driven APRM initiative and its variety of results in terms of transparency and accountability (or the limits thereof)?

Conclusion
The following perspectives by African scholars based on the continent provide no answers but reinforce the questions. They are necessary to be posed. Premature praises of current trends would be as premature and destructive. As so often in transitional socio-political processes, the existing realities are most likely located somewhere in between those extremes.

The recent concerted efforts to provide the increasing number of retired African presidents with meaningful tasks to at least neutralise them if not to turn them into a constructive additional ingredient to enhance the notion of so-called good governance is just one case in point. This relatively new phenomenon on the continent is illustrated not only by the drastically growing cases of a peaceful and constitutionally anchored transfer of political power in African countries. It is also documented among others by the ‘Bamako Declaration of the African Statesmen Initiative’ adopted on 8 June 2005 as well as the ‘Africa Forum’ of former heads of state established upon initiative of former president Joaquim Chissano in mid-January 2006 in Maputu.

On the other hand, various dubious moves by political leaders in power (notably Museveni in Uganda, Kérékou in Benin, but also Obasanjo in Nigeria) seem to suggest that the willingness to vacate office in due course and according to the rule of the law existing is still not a generally accepted and internalised notion among all those occupying the positions.

Notwithstanding such visible evidence of setbacks and contrasting manoeuvres remains the fact that leaders in much bigger numbers opt out today than they did in the past. This might not be good enough yet to secure meaningful and lasting advancements for countries and their people – but it’s certainly better than the generation of despots heading cleptocratic regimes that used to be the order of the day in many more countries. If therefore the AU, NEPAD and its APRM at the end turn out to contribute to an increased shared awareness among the elites in African countries to adhere to certain principles of democracy and human rights in governing practices, one should not simply shrug shoulders and disregard this as a meaningless symbolic act. After all, processes of social transformation seem to be a long and time-consuming affair in our days, where revolutions are anything but the order of the day.

* Dr. Henning Melber is Research Director of the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala/Sweden and had been director of NEPRU between 1992 and 2000. Parts of this article had been presented as an input paper for a meeting between Nordic and African Foreign Ministers in January 2006.

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