Governance and APRM Programme

Governance and APRM Programme

SAIIA's Governance and APRM Programme aims to stimulate public debate and scholarship about critical governance and development questions in Africa and beyond. The Programme seeks to improve public policymaking by linking governments, citizens and researchers through a variety of publications, training workshops and research fellowships. We have assisted African civil society groups, governments and researchers to understand and take advantage of the opportunities offered by the innovative African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM); a system designed to diagnose governance problems and propose practical solutions. This Programme was launched in October 2006, building on the earlier Nepad and Governance Programme that ran from 2002-2006.

The Programme's work involves two key components: training and research. It is set up to deliver training workshops and offer advice to civil society organisations, governments and research institutions on how best to engage with the APRM, from understanding the basics of the process to working with partners to develop written submissions, to designing research and sensitisation projects. The Programme has facilitated workshops in nearly 20 African countries and directly participated in the South African peer review process as one of the four Technical Support Agencies that helped compile the Country Self-Assessment Report.

The second component is research and generation of training material. Among many other publications, the Programme has developed an online APRM Toolkit, guidebooks on APRM for civil society, governments and research institutes, and collated all the standards and codes cited into the APRM Standards Book. All documents are available in English, French and Portuguese. More recently, the programme published the first in-depth study on the APRM process, entitled The African Peer Review Mechanism: Lessons from the Pioneers. See here for reviews, or to download the entire book.

SAIIA Occasional Papers on aspects of governance are published both electronically and in hard copy form. The programme also produces and distributes a monthly Governance Perspectives electronic update.

In February 2010, the programme established a user group on Facebook, entitled "A-Watch: Tracking the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM)" as a way for civil society stakeholders to exchange information on the progress of the APRM more easily: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=300600900951

Steven Gruzd heads the Programme. Other researchers are Tšoeu Petlane, Yarik Turianskyi and George Katito. This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it is the Programme Administrator. Ross Herbert is the Governance Research Fellow.

This Programme is funded by the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Pretoria.