49th APRM Panel Meeting

The Panel prepares the 15^th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the APRM to be held in Malabo

Midrand / Johannesburg (South Africa) - May 13, 2011. Members of the Panel of Eminent Persons of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) will hold their 49th Meeting in Johannesburg from 15 to 16 May 2011. One of the highlights of the Agenda is the preparation of the 15th Summit of the Forum of Heads of State and Government participating in the Mechanism. The Panel will build substantially on the draft programme of this biannual Forum scheduled to take place on 29 June in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, on the sidelines of the 17th Summit of the African Union (AU).

The 49th meeting of the Panel will also assess the readiness of the Country Review Mission to Sierra Leone from 21 May to 6 June 2011. The Mission will be headed by barrister Akere Muna, who already conducted a follow-up Mission in that West Africa country from 12 to 17 April. The follow-up mission observed and verified that Sierra Leone was ready to welcome the team of experts in charge of scrutinizing its status in the areas of Democracy and Political Governance, Governance and Economic Management, Socio-Development and Corporate Governance.

Validation of the Country Review Report of Ethiopia is also on the Agenda. The key issue is to take into account the discussions from the 14th Summit of Heads of State and Government held on 29 January 2011 in Addis Ababa, during which Ethiopia was peer reviewed.

Furthermore, the members of the Panel will consider, for the first time, the Report of Zambia, where a mission led by Professor Amos Sawyer was held from 7 to 25 February 2011. They will focus particularly on the question of whether all conditions are met for Zambia to be peer reviewed at the 15th Summit in June.

As tradition dictates, the Chief Executive Officer of the APRM Secretariat, Mr. Assefa Shifa, will speak at the 49th Meeting to take stock of the Secretariat's activities since the last Panel Meeting which took place in Johannesburg on 15 March 2011.