The recent African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) self-assessment country report on South Africa has a balanced outcome of best practices and areas of improvement such as corporate governance and media freedom which can be shared with other African countries.
This was revealed by the chairperson of APRM National Governing Council (NGC) of South Africa, Mr Thulani Tshefuta while briefing the media in Pretoria on Tuesday.
“The SA Review had a balanced outcome of Best Practices we can share with other countries and areas of improvement…best practice areas includes corporate governance, institutions supporting democracy (Public Protector, Human Rights Commission, and IEC), Media Freedom and independent judiciary.
“Issues emerging from the Country Report and Review Mission includes democracy and political governance – electoral reforms, corporate governance–meaningful corporate citizenship and communities they serve, economic governance and management– growth, unemployment (Youth), claim to economy by the majority of citizens, socio-economic development–poverty, basic service delivery, resilience of the state–agility, responsiveness and sustainability,” he said.
According to Mr Tshefuta, over the last 23 months, some significant achievements have been recorded and these includes undertaking the 2nd Generation Review in 18 months, highest number of reviews, first country to be reviewed on State Resilience currently.
He said the APRM National Structures are seized with the development of the National Programme of Action and will submit periodic progress reports on its implementation.
“From this point onwards, our work will be designed to balance evidence based approaches with people driven and centred measures. Our national programme will focus on activities such as APRM National Conference and launch of the Country Report, establishment of APRM Provincial Structures, Community Based engagements, sectoral stakeholder engagements, dialogues, lectures, and Webinars, continuous engagements through mainstream and community media platforms,” he said.
Mr Tshefuta also announced that they have been able to establish all the APRM national structures in South Africa, where Public Service and Administration Acting Minister, Mr Thulas Nxesi is the National Focal Point, Inter-Ministerial Committee on APRM.
“Provincial Focal Points have been appointed, multi-sectoral NGC with representatives from government, business and civil society, we have established a national Secretariat to support the daily operations of the APRM.
“In order to deliver a country assessment report that is Technically Competent, Credible and free from political manipulation, the NGC appointed Technical Research Institutions to lead and conduct the technical research process of the assessment. The Steering Committee was established as the EXCO of the NGC,” he said.
In line with the thematic focus areas of the APRM, the APRM chairperson said their NGC is organised into the following work-streams: Democracy and Good Political Governance (DPG); Economic Governance and Management (EGM); Corporate Governance (CG); Socio-economic Development (SED) and Resilience of the State (as a new additional thematic areas and communication.
Since its establishment, the APRM NGC was able to successfully undertake and complete a Self-Assessment Country Report which was adopted by the South African Cabinet in December 2021 and this opened way for the country to host the Country Review Mission in December of the same year.
The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), is an African owned and led process of self-assessment under the auspices of the African Union.
The APRM is aimed at entrenching democracy and good governance amongst the Member States of the African Union who voluntarily acceded to this initiative.
It is a voluntary self-assessment instrument that is intended to advance the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable socio-economic development and accelerated sub regional and continental economic integration.
