Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio has on Sunday, February 6, assumed the chairmanship of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).
Bio will for the next two years (2022 to 2024) serve as head of the APRM Forum, which is the highest decision making body in the self-assessment and monitoring tool of the continent.
The APRM, a specialised agency of the African Union (AU) established in 2003, serves as a platform for sharing of experiences and reinforcing best practices towards political stability, accelerated economic growth and regional and continental integration. It also seeks to ensure sustainable development by fostering change in underlying deficiencies in governance and socioeconomic development processes among member states.
The APRM was established in the framework of the implementation of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), which is an economic development programme of the AU.
President Bio succeeds South African President Cyril Ramaphosa who held the one-term chairmanship position from 2020 to 2022.
Bio was appointed by the committee of participating heads of state at the ongoing Ordinary Session of Heads of State and Government of the African Union in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, according to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
The statement says President Bio’s appointment was in recognition of gains made by his leadership in promoting democracy, rule of law and good governance.
Bio assumed the leadership of the APRM as it tries to consolidate its gains following the expansion of its mandate to include the monitoring of the implementation of the AU’s Agenda 2063 and the United Nations Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development Goals.
Membership of the APRM is voluntary. As at this point, only 38 member states have acceded to it.
As part of execution of its mandate, the APRM conducts four types of country reviews. The base review is undertaken once a country joins it; member states are subjected to periodic reviews very four years after joining; member countries may also request a review; and finally, a review can be commissioned by the APRM Forum when there are early signs of pending political and economic crisis in a member state.
The AU says the review process gives member states a space for national dialogue on governance and socio-economic indicators and an opportunity to build consensus on the way forward.
Other previous chairpersons of the APRM Forum are the late Idriss Derby Itno of Chad (2018 to 2019) and Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta (2015 to 2017).
The Foreign Ministry statement cited several reforms and achievements recorded within the last nearly four years of the Bio administration which the government believes justifies the country’s standing at international level, notably the abolition of the death penalty and maintenance of peace in the country.
“President Bio’s endorsement is a recognition of the meteoric rise of Sierra Leone in the global stage as well as a country of standing, respected by and in the community of states,” Foreign Minister Prof. David Francis is quoted in the statement.
President Bio is also currently the chairperson of the AU’s Committee of 10 tasked with advocating for Africa’s common position on the reform of the United Nations Security Council.
