Pretoria, 28 January 2019 – Gearing for further integration in the African continent, the African Peer Review Mechanism, an organ of the African Union, had a fruitful meeting with the Head of the mission of the Kingdom of Morocco to South Africa, chargé d’Affaires, Abdelkader Naji to discuss the bilateral cooperation between the APRM and Morocco. From the APRM Secretariat, Dr. Rachel Mukamunana, Head of Country Review Coordination Division and Sara Hamouda, Regional Coordinator for North Africa took part in the meeting with the attendance of Mr. Atif Drif, Counsellor in charge of Economic Affairs at the embassy.

From his side, Mr. Naji expressed his honour and pleasure to host the APRM Secretariat acknowledging its role in promoting good governance and sharing best practices at the African level. Furthermore, he appreciated the APRM’s initiative for encouraging the membership of Morocco in the mechanism adding to the 37 African countries that have already joined the APRM since its foundation in 2003. Mr. Naji also stressed on the unconditional and continuous support Morocco provides to Africa owing to the strong cultural, historical and economic ties between the Kingdom of Morocco and many African countries.

From her side, Dr. Mukamunana presented the current APRM activities including the expanded mandate created by the African Union to support the member states in reporting on the progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals as well as Agenda 2063 ‘Africa we Want’ under the AU revitalization decision of the APRM since 2017. In addition, the APRM has drafted for the first time the ‘State of Governance in Africa’ report together with other members of the African Governance Architecture (AGA) platform. The report will be presented and validated at the upcoming AU summit in Addis Ababa this week. Furthermore, she displayed the process of conducting peer review for AU member states in our main aspects of governance at national level; political, economic, socio-economic and corporate governance based on full cooperation with member states’ executive bodies, and through consulting national experts from the private sector, academia and Civil Society Organizations.

Based on this valuable discussion, the APRM will work on launching a dialogue with the government of Morocco during the upcoming months to move forward towards the kingdom’s accession to the APRM as an influential AU member state to share its experience in governance-related issues among other African peers and to contribute to the integration of the African Union.