Counties can improve service delivery by embracing peer review

It is said that ''What gets measured gets done.'' In other words, regular measurement and reporting keeps you focused.

Last week, President Uhuru Kenyatta demonstrated his conviction in this wisdom by launching the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) country report at a time when most other African countries have almost abandoned the process.

APRM was created in 2003 by the African Union as a specialised agency that provides a platform for ''sharing experiences, reinforcing best practices, identifying deficiencies, and assessing capacity-building needs to foster policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration.''

PAN-AFRICANISTS

The philosophy behind APRM was first mooted by the progressive Africanist policies of former South African president, Thabo Mbeki, and a few other broad-minded continental leaders such as Tanzania’s Jakaya Kikwete who was instrumental in creating African foreign policy strategies, Mozambique’s Joaquim Chissano, Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, Algeria’s Abdelaziz Bouteflika and Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki whose country became among the first countries to be reviewed.

President Mbeki also originated the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), which is credited with many socio-economic development projects across the continent. NEPAD became the de facto secretariat for the APRM.

APRM, to which many countries acceded, became the first public policy by continental Africa and it was heralded as the African Agenda or African renaissance. Indeed, many African academics including those who became part of the APR Panel of Eminent Persons hailed this as the beginning of African-led measurement of socio-economic development after years of taking lectures from the Bretton Woods Institutions and other donor countries.

The initial agenda was to bring together disparate African countries into a single market on the basis of ''mutual responsibility'' and ''mutual accountability.'' Mbeki’s motives were to persuade as many African governments as possible to his agenda, especially on engaging in trade-off diplomacy with the Western countries, many of which had colonised Africa for many years.

In trade-offs, Africa could, for example, negotiate for more exports in return for lower emission levels that protect our mutual resource – the environment.

Instead, the West often gave Africa measly resources as aid and proceeded to make Africans look as if they beg for such resources. Indeed, what seemed to be a gesture of good will effectively became a tool for diminishing Africa’s dignity.

Historian will one day expound on the place of Mbeki’s resolute initiatives that were meant to shore up democratic rule, peace and security on the continent, as well as in speeding up economic development through regular measurements to limit the growing unemployment, crime and hopelessness in Africa.

KENYAN REVIVAL

Unfortunately, South Africans, led by then President of the African National Congress, Jacob Zuma, a Pan-Africanist minnow by all measures, removed Mbeki out of not just his leadership in South Africa but throughout the continent of Africa.

Since Mbeki’s departure, APRM has been largely in Intensive Care Unit until President Kenyatta revived it with a new tangent – applying its methods in county governments – perhaps to enhance governance, peace and security as well as economic performance at sub-national level. This indeed is a very noble proposal if all other purposes as intended by Mbeki are incorporated.

We have seen governors traveling abroad and marketing their counties with very little knowledge of foreign policy, let alone having the necessary muscle to negotiate deals. Under the principal of APRM, numbers are key to the achievement of a reasoned deal.

That is why Mbeki needed one billion Africans and not 50 million South Africans. If we want our dignity, we need to understand where we have come from and what it is we need to do to enhance economic development of our regions.

Ethiopia, for example, has made good coffee deals with retailers across the world. Rather than other countries trying to make similar deals, there is sense in consolidating knowledge and information under the banner of APRM to improve negotiating capacity as a continent than dealing with the experienced world out there as a small producer.

Like Thomas Paine said, ''It is not in numbers, but in unity, that our great strength lies.'' It is for this reason that Africa is exploited as it lacks strength especially when it comes to her primary products.
There is indeed a need to strengthen the APRM across the African continent and leverage on numbers to negotiate deals that can benefit ordinary citizens.

The mechanism needs to be launched into the sub-national level as proposed by President Kenyatta as a strategy to integrate information for Africa’s competitiveness. It is perhaps the best way of cascading what has been hitherto a complex concept only understood by a few and to strengthen the devolved governments.

By entrenching review by peers we safeguard the nascent democratic systems, enhance economic development and foster peace and security. That, without a doubt, will lead to the eradication of poverty and create a more inclusive Africa.

The writer is an associate professor at University of Nairobi’s School of Business.@bantigito