APRM MEETING AMONG ECOWAS MEMBER STATES UNDERWAY IN ACCRA.

A two days meeting of the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) member states on the African Peer Review Mechanism is underway in Accra. The meeting which officially opened yesterday is aimed at sharing experiences in the methodology of operationalising the APRM process across ECOWAS member states, promote good and effective economic, political, social, corporate and democratic governance in member countries, examine the challenges, prospects and various strategies of implementing the APRM process and develop a framework of cooperation and various coordination to facilitate member state acceding to the APRM process. The expected outcome of the meeting is also to set up modalities for the establishment of national focal institutions to operationalize the NEPAD/APRM mechanism in ECOWAS member states and thus create an enabling ground for the enhancement of good governance via the effective equitable and transparent utilization of both natural resources and the budget of member state government. And in the long run enhance good socio-economic development agenda for ECOWAS member states. At the opening the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Chris Kpodo who spoke on behalf of the President of the Republic of Ghana Prof. Evans Atta-Mills said bulk financing of the APRM programs of Actions should be done by various states concern to put more responsibility on the state to further help in retaining ownership of the process. But beyond the provision of financial resources,ECOWAS member states should primarily apply peer pressure in order to encourage all member states in the region to sign-up to the mechanism, submit themselves to the peer review and implement the National Program of Action (NPoA) .
He further reiterated that, the signing up and implementation of the APRM is an indication of state’s commitment to the broad ideals of good governance and accountability, democracy, participative public policy making, peace and security. Try and come up with recommendations which would deepen citizen’s participation in good governance and democratic processes and place a high premium on how to deal with non-military threats to human security such as corruption and stifling bureaucracies that do not lend themselves to transparency and scrutiny.
The Chairman, National African Peer Review Mechanism Governing Council, Ghana Prof.S.K. Adjepong charged participants of the meeting to draw a regional expertise to support and assist countries that have not yet acceded to fully understand the benefit of the APRM ,develop frameworks to assist countries within the sub-region in drawing out APRM accession and implementation strategies taking into consideration their level of development and share not only pre-review and post-review experiences and best practices among nations of the sub-region and also supporting state and non-state institutions in mainstreaming the APRM National Program Of Action into policies and development strategies member countries.
BY: Michael F. Amedor