CHAPTER ONE 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Evolution of the African Peer Review Mechanism 1. Africa entered the new millennium with optimism and a commonly derived and broadly supported roadmap for overcoming the development challenges of the last decades. These had been exacerbated by various factors, including conflict, institutional decay, leadership and managerial deficit, endemic corruption and economic mismanagement. The continent’s agenda for renewal and for overcoming these development deficits includes advancing the basic values of democratisation and good governance, which together constitute the key requirements for sustainable development; devising bold steps for action; leading the renewal process; as well as increasingly exercising ownership of its development agenda. 2. In an effort to put Africa back on the path of self-sustaining development, the plan for renewal was encapsulated in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), which the African Union (AU) adopted at its Summit in Abuja, Nigeria, in October 2001. As the development framework of the AU, NEPAD constitutes a synthesis of two proposed development frameworks, the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Programme (MAP) and the Omega Plan for Africa. The primary objectives of NEPAD are to eradicate poverty; to place African countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development; to halt marginalisation of the continent in the globalisation process; to enhance its full and beneficial integration into the global economy; and to accelerate the empowerment of women. 3. At the core of these objectives is the need for good governance on the African continent as a prerequisite for human security and political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development, and accelerated subregional and continental economic integration. In recognition of this need, the Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC) of the AU proposed that NEPAD countries should subject themselves to a voluntary self-assessment process intended to review progress in the achievement of mutually agreed targets and compliance with mutually agreed standards. The creation of the institutional framework for the review process was taken a step further at the Inaugural Assembly of the AU in Durban, South Africa, in June 2002, when the heads of state and governments of AU countries issued a Base Document on the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). The document provided for the 41