Government critics who expected the African peer review team to ride into town last week cracking the whip on the South African government, blaming it for the high crime levels and criticising the unacceptably high unemployment figures were probably disappointed.
In response to media queries about what he had found so far, leader of the South African Country Review Process Professor Adebayo Adedeji was emphatic on Friday. “We are not here to pass judgement. We are here to facilitate a process of self-review. There is no review which is more important than one arising from self-analysis.”
Adedeji’s country review team has been long awaited. Its work is central to achieving new African Union objectives to democratise governance on the continent and increase economic growth, which would ultimately decrease the levels of poverty and lead to political stability.
The process is supposed to get enhanced credibility from African governments evaluating each other rather than Western institutions imposing their values on them.
The team received the country assessment report, which is South Africa’s self-analysis compiled by the governing council, composed of government and other civil stakeholders.
The self-assessment report also contains a programme of action which details how the country is working to eradicate weaknesses identified in the report.
Interestingly, only about half of the continent’s countries have bought into the idea and signed up for reviews by their peers, with 26 of 53 countries signing up. So far, Adedeji and his team have completed work in Rwanda, Ghana and Kenya and last week started their visit to South Africa.
Adedeji has served as executive secretary to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and is currently the CE of the Africa Centre for Development and Strategic Studies in Nigeria. His team of 22 experts includes the former president of the African Development Bank, Dr Babacar Ndiaye, former Kenyan minister for planning and national development Peter Anyang’Nyongo and the former president of the interim government of national unity in Liberia, Professor Amos Sawyer.
The team has since begun a countrywide mission to engage the public and all stakeholders, including government, to hear its findings and measure that against what is contained in the report.
When the process started, the fear was that many countries would simply present glossy reports from governments, not mirrored by the reality of each country’s situation.
“They cannot cover up anything because all the stakeholders are represented and they would raise objections. If we hear anything that contradicts the self-assessment report, we ask: ‘What’s going on?’,” asserted Adedeji.
In South Africa the team had to listen to the country’s third-biggest political party, the Inkatha Freedom Party, complain about the composition of the provincial governing council. The IFP was unhappy that the council was made up of ruling party members and those sympathetic to it. “The APRM [African peer review mechanism] is off to a wobbly start. We have serious reservations about the over-representation of certain interests on the provincial governing council as well as the under-representation of others,” said Dr Lionel Mtshali, who leads the IFP in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial Parliament.
“We consult and interact to see if there is consensus behind the country report. We then assess whether there are issues which need attention, which we highlight,” said Adedeji.
“We then prepare a report for the heads of state. But, before that, we send the report to that country first to see if they agree with our report.
“If they don’t, we stick by our report, but we would attach their reservations to our report to the heads of state, who perform their final peer review on each other.”
Adedeji said all four countries had cooperated with his teams. “Remember, we do not go into a country unless we are invited because membership of the APRM is voluntary,” he said.
He lauded South Africans for their active involvement in the process.
“Participation in South Africa has been the best so far. There were five million South Africans involved at different stages and we had 6 000 people making inputs.”
He said problems sometimes encountered include funding for the whole project. “In South Africa, you are lucky because the government is funding the whole thing. In many poorer countries we have to open a trust fund to which international donors can contribute.”