Today, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) hosted a delegation from the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) at their offices in Midrand with the aim of exploring concrete areas of collaboration between the two institutions.

Dr Rachel Mukamunana, Policy Advisor and Coordinator of the African Peer Review Process, highlighted the many commonalities between the two organisations in strengthening capacity building and peer learning on the continent.

Dr Mukamunana emphasised on APRM’s role as a coordinator of governance issues amongst APRM member states and other African stakeholders including the private sector, Civil Society Organisations and other non-state actors. She highlighted possible areas of cooperation through capacity building interventions at country level and supporting member states to fully engage with the APRM. “APRM has proven its relevance to Africa and with support from ACBF, the increased awareness of our work will be beneficial to member states participating in the review process and to the whole continent,” she said.

The joint team of APRM and the NEPAD Agency briefed the ACBF team on APRM’s mandate to foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional and continental integration. APRM is a unique accountability method for African countries to review each other’s governance and hold each other to account by sharing experiences and identifying deficiencies and assessing the needs for capacity building.

Leading the ACBF team, Mr Roger Atindehou, ACBF Interim Director, said that there are many areas of intervention that APRM can tap into. These include more support on capacity development, think tank augmentation, support in the review and implementation of country reviews.

Other areas of support discussed included building of technical expertise in the member states, developing think tanks, and producing Country self-assessment reports at national level, institutional strengthening through human capacity support, knowledge management, staff leadership and development and the retention of more experts to carry out the review processes.