Africa: Assessing the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)

While the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) is a welcome addition to pan-African institutional structure, its design will have to be improved for it to be truly successful. First, APRM should greatly narrow the scope of its reviews if it is to deliver competent assessments. Second NEPAD should devote significant resources to allow civil society in the reviewed country to do assessments of their own, and to critique the APRM assessment. This is according to a paper on the APRM by Ravi Kanbur, T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs and Professor of Economics at Cornell University.