Kampala, 21 July, 2010 - a gathering of more than 80 representatives of civil society organizations working on governance around Africa have urged the new members of the Africa Peer Review Mechanism Panel, to use the opportunity given to them and focus on reenergizing the process. This call came amidst the APRM's challenges, amongst which include the inability to appoint a CEO from 2007 to date, resulting in a weakened secretariat, which ultimately impacted on the progress registered at the beginning of the implementation of the mechanism in 2003.

"There is no doubting the fact that the APRM process has registered some positive results in the past, but the pace at which reviews are currently being carried out is too slow. The new appointees to the Panel now have an opportunity to put the process back on track and move it forward," said Ozias Tungwarara, AfriMAP's director.

The 14 point communiqué issued at the meeting in Kampala also called for National Programmes of Action, based on the recommendations of the APRM process, to be a primary focus of the APRM reviews, which would measure progress, and flag challenges. Although the National Governance Councils' make-up points to a healthy mix of government, civil society, and private sector, the communiqué calls for the independence of the councils to be guaranteed, by a majority composition of non-state actors.

"It is critical that the Governing Councils continue to inject integrity into the process, and one of the ways of ensuring that such integrity is adopted and maintained is by employing a transparent selection procedure of people with relevant expertise and capacity to engage with the process", said Elections Institute of the Sustainability of Democracy in Africa's Grant Mastersen.

The coalition of the civil society organizations also acknowledged that they too had a shared responsibility to ensure that the APRM process is successful and that National Plans of Action are implemented. The media's role was also identified, and a call for more engagement and reporting about the APRM was made. But without the information from the actors like the APR secretariats at continental and national levels, the gathering disclosed, the ability for the media to focus on the mechanism would remain a challenge.

Other requests from APRM actors, and government leaders included the need for sufficient allocation of resources to sustain and manage the process better. A clarion call for the strengthening of the Pan African Parliament's role in the APRM was also reiterated. It included an establishment of a dedicated committee on the APRM, which engages the process, and follows up on the Country Review Reports and the National Plans of Action.

The communique from the meeting and keynote speech from Bishop Zac Ngirinye are available here.

What:

The APRM established in 2003, shows a unique peer review process, which no other regional grouping has. To date 30 countries have signed up and a dozen have completed their reviews. However, challenges still loom large over the mechanism's endurance in the face of uncertainty, at several levels. The way and manner in which the process has been implemented in different countries point to differing motives by individual countries in engaging with the APRM. And whilst some countries have shown strong political commits to ensuring that the process is transparent and participatory others have engaged in a cosmetic exercise of merely �going' through the motions, with no real intensions of implementing recommendations. As a result, a two day conference on the APRM, entitled: Taking Peering Learning to the next level, which deliberated on the lessons learned and mapped a way forward in helping to strengthening the APRM process was convened. Academics, politicians, non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations, as well as faith based organizations and media participated in the meetings, which took place on the margins of the 15th Ordinary Session of the African Union Summit, held in Kampala, Uganda.

Who:

AfriMAP, the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project, is an initiative of the Soros foundation network's four African foundations, and works with national civil society organizations to conduct systematic audits of government performance in three areas: the justice sector and the rule of law; political participation and democracy; and effective delivery of public services. The project also assesses roles of Public broadcaster in Africa, as well as advocating on Citizenship issues on the African continent.

http://www.afrimap.org/

AGI Africa Governance Institute was conceived as a center for high-level political dialogue and advanced studies and training on Governance in Africa. As such, it will be called upon to:engage in advocacy for democratic and Developmental Governance in Africa; develop cutting-edge research and innovative training methods designed to find solutions to the most pressing Governance issues identified in political dialogue sessions and disseminate relevant information on Governance in Africa.

http://www.kituochakatiba.org/

EISA evolved from an elections NGO servicing Southern Africa into a more diversified organisation working throughout the continent with national, regional, Pan-African and global partners. The Institute's work covers elections and other Democracy & Governance fields like political party development, conflict management, legislative strengthening, the African Peer Review Mechanism and local governance and decentralisation. Outside the southern African region, EISA has field offices in Burundi, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Kenya and Sudan, which is a reflection of its broader geographical mandate.

www.eisa.org.za



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Posted on: 22 July 2010

Kampala  July 2010 -- A new report released today on the implementation of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) in nine countries identifies as a common theme the lack of truly effective public participation in the process at national level. The report is published by the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) of the Open Society Foundations network in Africa.

"The APRM is perhaps the most people driven process ever initiated at continental level on paper, but in practice the reality is often rather different", said Ozias Tungwarara, Director of AfriMAP.   "Though even the most closed countries opened up at least some space for public debate that would not otherwise have taken place, most governments still felt the need to control the process."

Perhaps the most successful APRM processes examined in the report were in Ghana and Benin, but even in those countries, many civil society groups complained that participation was not sufficiently open, nor feedback to those who contributed adequate.

It has been seven years since the first six African states committed themselves in March 2003 to a systematic governance review by the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). Thirty countries have now joined the process, and twelve have completed the full APRM examination and adopted a national plan of action to address the challenges identified. 

The new report brings together studies on nine countries that have undertaken the APRM process (Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa) previously published by AfriMAP, and contributes a new overview of the lessons learned from the implementation of the APRM so far. 

The report notes that political support from the highest levels of government has been key to the successful completion of the APRM self-assessments and final reviews; but that political commitment has also meant that some governments have been reluctant to let the assessments be as independent as they should be � notably in Algeria, Rwanda and South Africa.

The role of the APRM panel of eminent persons has been critical in challenging governments to allow greater access to civil society in the debates over the evaluation of national respect for continental governance standards.

Civil society engagement was strong in many countries � especially Benin, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa, among those included in the compilation � but virtually all countries failed to provide a genuine opportunity to comment on the draft self-assessment report submitted

Administrative problems and lack of proper outreach have plagued many processes, often contributing to the frustration of those who hoped to participate, but never received any feedback on what they had contributed.

Follow-up mechanisms for the national plans of action are also weak. Several countries have disbanded their own APRM institutions that had been created to oversee the review processes, and monitor progress on implementation of action plans.

"The mere fact that doubts are abound about the lack of integration of plans of action emanating from the APRM exercises into national planning process in various countries, paints an unattractive canvass of countries going through an ambitious, expensive and time consuming exercise which is in futility," Mr. Tungwarara asserts.

Nevertheless, the report does state that despite the challenges that loom large over the implementation of plans of action and road maps for governance reform, a space for discussion has at least been created in countries that are akin to controlling and restricting public debate, and constricting political space. 

The report calls on government engaged in the APR process to be less controlling of an exercise that was designed to encourage openness.  It also calls on civil society to be more robust in monitoring progress of the plans of action which emanate from the APRM reviews.  In order to do this, it states that skills to for proper and relevant policy making must be developed, without which little progress in policy dialogue, implementation and progress on the governance front will be realized.

Background:

This publication is a compilation of reviews of the implementation of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) commissioned by the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) of the Open Society Foundations network.  The reviews identify challenges that all stakeholders involved in reforming the APRM should be aware of and commit to resolving.  AfriMAP�s aim is to contribute to discussions on the reform and strengthening of the APRM process and to increase knowledge of this ground-breaking African initiative.

 

The countries covered in this compilation are: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa.  The country chapters were authored by Mouloud Boumghar (Algeria), Gilles Badet (Benin), Julien K. Natielse (Burkina Faso), Adotey Bing-Pappoe (Ghana), Steve Ouma Akoth (Kenya), Sheila Bunwaree (Mauritius), L. Adele Jinadu (Nigeria) and Nobuntu Mbelle (South Africa).

 

The Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project  (AfriMAP), the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project, is an initiative of the Open Society foundation network�s four African foundations, and works with national civil society organizations to conduct systematic audits of government performance in three areas: the justice sector and the rule of law; political participation and democracy; and effective delivery of public services. It also conducts research and engages in advocacy on public broadcast media, and citizenship in Africa.

www.afrimap.org

The Open Society Institute (OSI), part of the Open Society foundation network, works to build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens. To achieve its mission, OSI seeks to shape public policies that assure greater fairness in political, legal, and economic systems and safeguard fundamental rights. On a local level, OSI implements a range of initiatives to advance justice, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSI builds alliances across borders and continents on issues such as corruption and freedom of information. OSI places a high priority on protecting and improving the lives of people in marginalized communities.

www.soros.org

 

For more information please contact:

In Johannesburg, Jeggan Grey Johnson -- Mobile+ 27 836 200578- email: jeggangj@osisa.org; or jgreyjohnson@yahoo.com;

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Posted on: 21 July 2010

(Kampala, Uganda, 21 October 2009)—The lack of citizenship rights generates conflict and undermines democracy in many countries in Africa, according to two new studies by the Open Society Institute.  The reports, the culmination of years of research, analyze citizenship laws from all 53 countries in Africa.

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See the report of the launch event and communique from the parallel workshop here: http://www.afrimap.org/researchDetail.php?id=51

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Released today on African Human Rights Day, the reports recommend that countries amend their constitutions and laws and that the African Union adopt a treaty on the right to a nationality.

“Throughout Africa, millions are stateless and denied basic rights”, said Bronwen Manby, senior adviser on Africa at the Open Society Institute and author of the reports. “The African Union needs to sit up and take notice of this crisis.”

The denial of citizenship rights has devastating human consequences. Millions of Africans without citizenship are deprived of the right to vote, to cross borders, and to access state health or education services. 

Citizenship discrimination is a major cause of conflict in many countries, most notoriously in Côte d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Politicians in both countries have demonized particular ethnic groups and discrimination in the application of the law has stripped millions of people of their nationality. In these countries and many others, individuals born and raised on a country’s soil are barred from ever obtaining citizenship purely because their ancestry.

The studies document how incumbent governments have also manipulated citizenship laws to exclude prominent individuals from claiming public office. Former Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda and Ivoirian prime minister Alassane Ouattara are two prominent cases discussed in the reports.

The reports will be unveiled at a special summit in Kampala, where African heads of state are set to adopt an agreement on the protection of internally displaced persons. Lack of citizenship—a frequent cause of conflict and displacement—can be especially problematic for Africa’s almost 12 million internally displaced persons. Without citizenship protections these people are easily excluded from services and political rights.

“The idea that someone can live here but belong nowhere is plainly un-African”, said Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, senior legal officer of the Open Society Justice Initiative. “By enshrining the right to a nationality in national and continental law, African governments would honour our traditions of building inclusive communities and help to eliminate conflict.”

Key findings include:

·         Only a handful of African countries provide in law for children born on their soil to have a right to their nationality if they would otherwise be stateless, despite the provisions of international treaties that require this protection.

·         The laws of at least half a dozen countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Malawi, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and Uganda, include provisions that restrict nationality from birth to members of certain ethnic groups.

·         More than half of Africa’s countries still discriminate against women and deny them the right to pass citizenship to their children or husbands.

·         Though almost all countries have laws allowing foreigners to naturalise, in practice, citizenship is often almost impossible to obtain.

·         Half of Africa’s states allow revocation of a person’s birth nationality and in many countries governments can rescind naturalised citizenship on highly arbitrary grounds.

Encouragingly, more than a dozen countries have amended their laws in recent years to reduce or eliminate gender discrimination. More than half Africa’s states now allow dual citizenship, recognising the reality of contemporary patterns of migration.

Moreover, the laws in more than half of the continent’s countries grant children born on their soil the right to nationality at birth if one of their parents was also born there, or the right to claim birth nationality when they reach the age of majority—though the observance of these laws is often lacking.

The reports include a detailed set of recommendations for African countries to reform national citizenship laws and adopt a protocol on the right to a nationality to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

“The first step is for African countries to follow the international conventions and ensure that all children who don’t have a right to nationality anywhere else, have the right to nationality where they are born”, said Manby.


The two publications released today are:

·         Struggles for Citizenship in Africa, published by Zed Books, which highlights case studies of citizenship crises in Africa.

·         Citizenship Law in Africa: A Comparative Study, published by the Open Society Institute, which provides a detailed comparative analysis of the citizenship laws of all 53 African states.

They were produced as a collaboration between two programmes of the Open Society Institute: AfriMAP and the Open Society Justice Initiative.



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Posted on: 21 October 2009