Sharm El Sheik, Egypt 03 April 2019 – The technical meeting on the APRM Instruments met today at Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. The APRM instruments encompass of three broad projects namely, the Country scorecard, the bottleneck indicators, and the Africa Governance Index (AGI). Each of these projects is assigned to countries to focal points in different countries namely, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda.

In his welcoming remarks Chairperson of the Panel of Eminent Persons, Prof. Gambari noted that governance encompasses different themes across different sectors of the economy. He indicated that there is a need to ensure that each of the projects speaks to one another. Thus, the need to ensure that bottleneck indicators and the scorecard feed into Africa Governance Index (AGI) or country scorecard and vice versa.

Prof. Gambari further mentioned that with the new mandate of the APRM, there is a need to develop tracking instruments which can be used to M&E implementation of recommendation in Africa Governance Report (AGR) in Africa. Such tracking instruments are vital since they will provide regular reporting from the NGC as well as the country.

During the technical meeting, Chairperson of the National Governance Council in Uganda Dr. Albert Byamugisha made a presentation on the 13 bottlenecks facing Africa’s development. In his presentation, Dr. Byamugisha noted that the bottlenecks represented issues that needed to be addressed for Africa to launch itself on the path of sustainable transformation. He also informed members that the 13 bottlenecks were identified and adopted by African Heads of States.

The Bottlenecks Project aims at identifying, situating and classifying the 13 blockages into the APRM thematic areas. Additionally, it seeks to development of an implementation framework for monitoring progress of the adoption of the bottlenecks in the country.

Concerning the Country Governance score card, that aims at developing a comprehensive framework of indicators to monitor the national governance plan as proposed by the Bureau of NGC, the focal point for this project, Rwanda Governance Board Head of Department Dr. Felicien Usengumukiza presented an outcomes report showing the extent to which the Africa Governance Report (AGR) can be linked to the Rwanda Score Card. In his presentation Dr. Felicien noted that there are great synergies between the Rwanda Score Card and the African Governance Report (AGR).