African peer review mechanism and the call for democratic developmental states in Africa

Since the 1970s, the developmental state (DS) discourse has become prominent and attractive among development scholars, writers, governments and policy makers in analysing the role of the state and the market in development. Exemplified by the rapid growth achieved by the Asian Tigers through self/indigenous efforts and good political leadership committed to formulation and implementation of sound economic policies, the DS discourse within the African context has been fuelled by the need to redesign state-led development strategies because the Structural Adjustment Programme and other development initiatives such as the Lagos Plan of Action were unsuccessful. The end of the Cold War in the late 1980s signalled the process of more intense globalisation, liberalisation and regionalisation with several challenges for individual African political economies, thus, the need for developmental states can no longer be over-emphasised. This paper examines the link between the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and the discourse of developmental states in Africa. It examines Africa's development challenge from the angle of governance deficiencies in most of its states with the aim of examining how the APRM not only advances the call for democratic developmental states in Africa, but is actually intervening to build its kinds in the continent. Employing data obtained from both primary and secondary sources, the paper addresses the questions: Does the APRM represent an answer to the call for democratic developmental African states? Considering the poor record of governance in the continent, what possibilities exist that the APRM will succeed in achieving its objectives?