Africa
An increasing need exists for country-led governance assessments in Africa. Accelerated direct budget support and rising aid targeted to governance as a sector are placing more pressure on governments to produce better governance monitoring data. In addition, internal pressure is rising, as are demands by citizens to learn more about how their governments are performing.
In response to this growing need, the African continent has become the home of a plethora of innovative local solutions for measuring governance. Such home-grown solutions have developed from the realization that many global initiatives for measuring governance are inadequate both in terms of capturing governance challenges as well as governance achievements within Africa. Global governance measuring initiatives also may be inadequate for providing internal incentives and political pressure to reform.
These pages seek to provide guidance on many of these existing initiatives for measuring democratic governance in Africa. They will offer guidance to existing data, overcoming particular regional challenges, as well as to the methodology and process of conducting a governance assessment.
The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) constitutes a special case. Five African countries have now completed their APRM reviews, and 22 others have signed up for the process.
The guidance offered here seeks to complement the work of the APRM. In countries where the APRM is taking place, additional, specific and smaller-scale assessments conducted by civil society or governments may serve as enhancements. In countries that do not subscribe to the APRM process, smaller-scale and specific assessments may provide alternative solutions.
UNDP supported initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa
News
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A regional workshop entitled "Country-led Governance Assessments: Sharing Experiences and Increasing Political Accountability" recently gathered 77 participants from over 20 African countries. The participants hailed from lead institutions that included UN agencies, government bodies, national statistical offices, academic institutions and civil society.
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One of Africa's biggest oil producers, Angola is also one of the world's poorest countries. It is striving to tackle the physical, social and political legacy of the 27-year civil war that ravaged the country after independence. Within this context the issue of decentralization is at the top of the Angolan Government's reform agenda.
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Djibouti has recently launched a task force charged with developing a monitoring strategy for the National Development Strategy’s pillar on governance, and is also poised to take the first steps in the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).
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Examples of Regional Initiatives
The Open Society Institute''s Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AfriMAP) is an initiative to promote compliance by African states with…
Defining the strategic priorities for viable research into cultural indicators of development with universal applicability has been on the agenda of a…
L'UIDH est une organisation régionale des droits de l’Homme rassemblant 60 organisations des droits humains indÅ
The goals of the Programme are: - to advance democratic consolidation in Southern Africa in support of NEPAD with an independent, objective and scientifically…
Organizations that assess governance in the region
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The mandate of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) is to promote the economic and social development of its member States, foster…
UNDP Key Publications
on assessing governance related to Africa
GA Library
Five most recent publications on Africa produced by a wide variety of institutions
The official APRM website offers country reports, news and information about the policy processes and assessments
This online resource, developed by SAIIA, contains guidebooks on APRM for civil society, governments and research institutes.