sources and sharing of information and experiences including through electronic or internet hyperlinks; (iii) assisting countries to undertake their national self-assessment and to prepare their NPoAs; (iv) undertaking technical assessments; (v) assisting countries to prepare for the Country Review Visit; and (vi) building capacity and assisting countries to implement the NPoAs and the recommendations of the country review reports. countries that had been reviewed at the time; and (iii) The Special Summit convened in January 2016 to address the broader challenges of the APRM and chart a path towards its revitalisation. 90. In November 2007, the APRM Secretariat hosted a workshop in Algiers at which it was announced that the APRM questionnaire and other documents would be reviewed by the Secretariat and other stakeholders.17 Under the Project for Streamlining and Fast Tracking the Implementation of the African Peer Review Mechanism,18 which commenced in 2009/10, the APRM revised the self-assessment questionnaire and developed a monitoring and evaluation framework, which were adopted by the APR Forum in 2012 and 2015, respectively. The extraordinary summit of the APR Forum that was convened in Benin in October 2008 also discussed a number of cross-cutting issues emerging from the first APRM country review reports, including managing diversity and xenophobia, elections, resource control and management, land policy, and corruption.19 86. The Strategic Partner Institutions that were identified at the inception of the APRM are the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the African Development Bank (AfDB). During the Strategic Plan period the APRM aims to add to the list of strategic partners the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) and the Mo Ibrahim Foundation. 3.4 The Necessity for Revitalisation 87. A close examination of the state the APRM finds itself in today reveals a number of challenges that have been encountered over the past few years in particular. The challenges are many and varied. They include waning political support for the Mechanism, lengthy review processes and excessively long review reports, a cumbersome questionnaire, widespread non-compliance on the part of many members with their financial obligations, internal management failures, poor coordination among different APRM organs, absence for nearly eight years of a chief executive officer for the Secretariat with full mandate to run the institution, and the onset of a sense of loss of direction for some time. 17 18 88. As indicated earlier, some of these issues have been addressed already, the appointment of a fullyfledged CEO being a case in point. However, many of them still remain, becoming the key priorities of the short-term revitalisation effort and core components of the longer-term work plan envisaged in this Strategic Plan. 19 89. Attempts to address many of these deficiencies have been made since the early days of the APRM. Three prominent examples would be: (i) The effort to review the questionnaire and other documents that was launched in 2007; (ii) The extraordinary summit of 2008 that was convened to examine the experience of –17– The workshop brought together those involved in APRM assessments at the national level, the members of the Eminent Person’s Panel, representatives of the APRM Secretariat and technical partners. The aim of the meeting was to carry forward the recommendations of AGF-VI held in Kigali in May 2006, with a view to presenting revisions to the questionnaire and other documents for adoption by the APR Forum at the African Union Summit in January 2008. See “APRM Secretariat gears up for major implementation workshop in Algiers”, NEPAD Dialogue (19 October 2007). The call for papers requested inputs on seven interrelated components: revision of the APRM methodology and processes (assignment A); revision of the APRM assessment questionnaire (democracy and political governance) (assignment B1); revision of the APRM assessment questionnaire (economic governance and management) (assignment B2); revision of the APRM assessment questionnaire (corporate governance) (assignment B3); revision of the APRM questionnaire (socioeconomic development) (assignment B4); development of an NPoA monitoring and evaluation framework (assignment C); and elaboration of modalities for enhancing the participation of civil society in the African Peer Review Mechanism (assignment D). The final communiqué of the Extraordinary Summit of the APR Forum held in Cotonou on 25-26 October 2008 and other reports of the meeting are available on the AfriMAP website (www.afrimap.org/newsarchive.php). Other cross-cutting issues have also been identified, including poverty and inequality, violence against women and gender inequality, violence against children, external dependency, crime and xenophobia, transformative leadership, constitutionalism, chieftaincy, political pluralism and competition for ideas, reform and modernisation of Government, spatial inequality and environmental degradation, unemployment, capacity constraints, and poor service delivery. The original APRM questionnaire also identified cross-cutting