INTRODUCTION GNPOA on stakeholder ownership and leadership. It was to address these and consistent with a bottom-up stakeholder leadership and ownership approach that civil society organizations with proven capacity, competencies and know-how and with recognized reputation as independent think-tanks were appointed as National Technical Review Teams. The four independent civil society National Technical Review Teams that conducted the actual technical consultations and assessment were: i. Center for Democratic Development (CDD) Democracy and Good Political Governance ii. Center for Policy Analysis (CEPA) Economic Governance and Management iii. Private Enterprise Foundation (PEF) - Corporate Governance iv. Institute of Statistical Social and Economic Research (ISSER) Socio-Economic Development To provide room for an open, transparent, democratic and participatory APRM process that is all-inclusive with an open door policy and with a flexibility that did not inhibit any individual, group or organization to participate in the APRM, a civil society liaison desk was established in the APRM Secretariat. This facilitated a participatory norm that engendered public ownership and input into the review process and contributed to make the GNPOA process credible and legitimate. It also provided a reality check on the work of the technical review teams and prevented the development of the GNPOA from being reduced to a narrow research and scientific basis instead of a human-centred approach. It may be added that some civil society organizations including the African Security Dialogue and Research (ASDR) and Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) on their own accord undertook a shadow APRM review of the country to interrogate and complement the official review process to deepen the national consultation engagement. This provided alternative information that was fed into the preparation of the GNPOA. Stakeholder Involvement and Identification To ensure that the APRM is an open, participatory and transparent process that fosters national dialogue and builds trust, it is important to create national ownership and leadership of the process. To this end, the involvement of stakeholders was viewed as paramount. In this respect, we identified stakeholders including Government officials, politicians, trade unions, traditional rulers, private sector actors, security services, media practitioners, professionals, civil society organizations, community based organizations, opinion leaders, women groups, the youth, vulnerable groups among others to create a broad-based understanding and participation in the APRM. To this 157