A six-member delegation from Kenya on visit to Ghana

Accra, May 11, GNA - A six-member delegation from Kenya's New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) Secretariat is in the countr= y to learn about Ghana's African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) best practice=

and to replicate it in their country.

The secretariat, apart from being a national body charged with the responsibility of domesticating NEPAD principles and values as well as coordinating implementation of NEPAD and APRM in Kenya, is also mandated by the NEPAD Eastern Africa Summit of Heads of State and Government held in Nairobi in October 2003, to coordinate NEPAD initiative in Eastern Africa= .. Reverend Professor Samuel Kwasi Adjepong, Chairman of Governing Coun= cil of National African Peer Review Mechanism (GC-NAPRM) Ghana, told the Ghan= a News Agency that the delegation was on a three-day visit to learn from th= e challenges and successes of APRM programme in Ghana.

Dr. Grace Ongile, Chief Executive Officer of NEPAD-APRM Kenya Secretariat and leader of the delegation, said APRM was an innovative too= l for governance that promoted socio-economic development and called on oth= er African countries that had not yet acceded to the mechanism to do so. Other members of the delegation are; Ms. Betty Loko, Procurement and=

Logistics Programme Officer of the Secretariat, Mr. Edward Gaitho, an Information Communication Technology Specialist, Mr. Wambua Musee and Ms.Cindy Songole, Management Consultants from the Ministry of State for Public Service. NEPAD's primary objectives include eradicating poverty, placing Afri= can countries, both individually and collectively, on a path of sustainable growth and development, to halt the marginalisation of Africa in the globalisation process and enhance its full and beneficial integration int= o the global economy and to accelerate the empowerment of women. Governing Council of National African Peer Review (GC-NAPRM) was set= up in compliance with requirements for participating countries of APRM. It is the independent focal point that has facilitated the implementation of APRM Process in Ghana. The APRM is an African self-monitoring system which entails a countr= y voluntarily submitting to make its own citizens undertake an internal aud= it or national self-assessment of its political, economic, corporate and socio-economic governance system after which an external audit or verification of the self-assessment report is made by an independent pane= l from the African Union (AU).

In addition to the self-assessment report, a country must prepare a Programme of Action to address shortcomings found in the assessment. In a related development, the GC-NAPRM announced the death of Dr. Francis Appiah, its Executive Secretary on April 22, and said funeral arrangements would be announced later.