Removing neocolonialism's APRM mask: a critique of the African Peer Review Mechanism

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Periodical article

Title:	Removing neocolonialism's APRM mask: a critique of the African Peer Review Mechanism
Author:	Bond, Patrick
Year:	2009
Periodical:	Review of African Political Economy
Volume:	36
Issue:	122
Pages:	595-603
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Africa
Subjects:	NEPAD governance neocolonialism African Peer Review Mechanism
External link:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056240903346186
Abstract:	The elites responsible for implementing the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), and for legitimizing neoliberalism more generally, are not democrats, and do not even seem to be committed to building their nations' economies. Nonetheless, limited African elite agency, and Nepad's failure to help poor Africans, are merely symptoms of a deeper problem, which is the manner of Africa's insertion into the world economy. Masking the neocolonial relationship during the 2000s was a new rhetoric, 'good governance'. The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), hosted by Nepad, simply masks neocolonial relations, as the South Africa review illustrates. The APRM process is generally not well integrated into other national development planning processes, debates and oversight mechanisms, and seems doomed to become little more than a cosmetic exercise without effect in the real world of policy and decisionmaking. Bibliogr., ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]