NEPAD’s African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is based on a mutually agreed instrument voluntarily acceded to by member states of the African Union. Monitoring began in 2005, and as of November 2007, 27 states had acceded to the mechanism. The process is intended to be transparent, accountable and participatory.

The APRM encourages participating states to ensure that their policies and practices conform to agreed political, economic and corporate governance values. It is not conceived as a review process for relevant conventions in the Africa region but does in fact partially review consistency of country practices with those conventions.

It covers 91 indicators in four focus areas: (1) Democracy and Political Governance; (2) Economic Governance and Management; (3) Corporate Governance; and (4) Socio-Economic Development. There are a set of objectives, standards, criteria and indicators for each of the focus areas and countries are supplied with Guidelines to Prepare for and Participate in the APRM.

Under the first two focus areas there is reference to UN and AU Convention standards and the criteria include questions about corruption and transparency. Thus, to a limited extent the process includes monitoring of government anti-corruption activities and measures performance against convention requirements. When the AU Convention and UNCAC enter into force one might expect this part of the review to expand but this may depend on how African Union monitoring develops.

Since its inception, the APR Panel has launched reviews in 14 countries, including Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Lesotho, Tanzania, Mozambique and Mali. By July 2007, five of these countries had their peer review finalised (Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and Algeria).

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