NEPAD proposes an African Peer Review (APR) mechanism to encourage self-monitoring and peer learning. The APR mechanism is perhaps the most innovative aspect of NEPAD. But, like many innovative ideas, there are many different views as to what constitutes a peer review, how it works in practice, and what it can achieve. It is therefore useful to start with a brief summary of the concept of peer review as understood by ECA.
What is peer review?
Peer review refers to the systematic assessment of the performance of a country by other states (peers), by designated institutions, or by a combination of states and designated institutions. The ultimate is to help a country undergoing review improve its policy-making, adopt best practices, and comply with established standards, principles, codes and other agreed commitments. Peer review assessments are conducted in a non-adversarial manner, and they rely heavily on the mutual trust and understanding between the country being reviewed and the reviewers.
Peer reviews can be based on subject areas or themes. For example, an individual country peer review could relate to macroeconomics, governance, education, health, or other government priorities. Whatever the subject or theme, country peer reviews are typically undertaken on a regular basis, with each review resulting in a report that assesses accomplishments, points out shortcomings, and makes recommendations. Peer review hardly ever implies a punitive decision, sanction, or any form of legally binding acts or enforcement mechanisms-but it could, as in the case of the European Union's Growth and Stability Pact which sets a deficit limit of 3% of GDP, for example.
Related to the concept of peer review is the concept of peer pressure. Indeed, the effectiveness of peer review lies on the influence of peer pressure-that is the persuasion exercised by peers. The peer review process can give rise to peer pressure through, for example: (1) a mix of formal recommendations and informal dialogues by the peer countries, (2) public scrutiny, comparisons and rankings among countries, and (3) the impact of the foregoing on domestic public opinion, policy makers, and other stakeholders. Lessons from peer review done elsewhere suggest that the greatest impact is derived when outcomes of peer reviews are made public.
The African Peer Review mechanism is the means to ensure that the policies and practices of participating states conform to the agreed political, economic and corporate governance codes and standards contained in the Declaration on Democracy, Political and Economic and Corporate Governance, adopted by the African Union Summit in July 2002. APR will assess the key features of the capable state, looking at the political, economic, and institutional aspects of governance. Can the state safeguard peace and security for its citizens? Is it providing the enabling environment for sustained growth and poverty reduction? Is it facilitating the private sector's contribution to development?
What will be the basis for the peer reviews?
The applications of the principles of NEPAD and their outcomes on development performance necessitate periodic and systematic assessment that will enable the tracking progress of outcomes, identifying and reinforcing of best practices, assessing of capacity gaps, and implementing the required corrective actions. The APR mechanism is the modality agreed to by African countries to traffic progress in the context of NEPAD.
Basically, and as discussed in the document The African Peer Review (APR) Mechanism: Process and Procedures, the goal of tracking progress is to help African states improve their policy-making, adopt best practices, and comply with established standards, principles, codes, and other commitments. To accomplish that, the tracking process must be specific and based on frameworks and methodologies that are practical, politically acceptable, and applicable across all countries concerned.
For progress to be tracked and development outcomes assessed in the context of NEPAD and beyond, some core indicators need to be identified. These indicators, as developed in the document The African Peer Review Mechanism: Core Indicators for Tracking Progress, will provide the basis for specific determinations of country performance that offer traction in drawing robust conclusions on development outcomes. In other words, these will be factual indicators of outcomes that will be used to inform judgments about the development progress of countries and, hence, the effectiveness of their relevant policies and institutions. At the same time, comparisons across countries will also be possible.
Providing the factual basis for specific determinations of country performance, the core indicators required to track progress and assess development outcomes fall into three categories:
- Political representativeness and rights: These indicators cover issues of political systems and electoral processes, representation, participation of various stakeholders in decision-making and civil, human and political rights.
- Institutional effectiveness: These indicators address issues related to the nature and workings of the legislature, judiciary and executive branches of government, as well as the state of the non-governmental sector.
- Economic management and corporate governance: These indicators will track issues pertaining to macroeconomic management, public financial management and accountability, monetary and financial transparency, accounting and auditing systems, and regulatory oversight of the monetary and financial sectors.
For each of the three categories of indicators, a number of basic indicators will be drawn from the relevant data. Some of these indicators and their data sources will be derived from ongoing work at ECA. In particular, the ECA governance assessments, implemented with national research institutes in 24 African countries, will provide information on the quality of governance and development outcomes as the basis for the reviews.
APR has the potential to replace the intrusive role that Western nations increasingly played in promoting economic and political reforms. Instead of externally imposed conditionality, African governments have now established their own monitoring mechanism to produce more acceptable ways of ensuring compliance with nationally, regionally, and internationally accepted norms of political, economic, and corporate governance.
Key issues for discussion
- What can African countries do to encourage their development partners to support the APR mechanism by strengthening the institutions-technically and financially-involved in the peer reviews? A best practice in this respect is the G-8 commitment to support ECA's participation in OECD/DAC peer reviews reflected in Canada's willingness to permit ECA to observe its (Canada's) own review.
- What steps can be taken to encourage African countries to hasten their accession to the APR mechanism?
- How can African countries ensure that the conduct of the peer review process is free from political interference and is consistently conducted in an independent and technically competent manner?
- What contribution can African countries make to the application of peer review pressure for compliance with the recommendations of the peer review reports?
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