The Africa Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) in Uganda is part of the Africa wide process to systematically examine and assess the performance of African states by fellow African states.  

This African home-grown initiative focuses on issues of governance in all sectors of society, particularly: democracy and political governance, economic governance and management, corporate governance and socio economic development and the process makes recommendations on how soft spots identified can be tackled.  The review is a highly participative and inclusive process that collects views from a wide range of stakeholders, which inform the country review and report.

 In Uganda, the APRM National Governing Council is mandated to oversee the implementation and monitoring of the Programme of Action (POA), and therefore ensures its areas of focus are monitored and reported upon.   

As part of its monitoring objectives, the Council with the support of United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched the first Uganda Governance Forum on 9th December 2009.

The Governance forum is intended to provide a non-partisan platform for policy makers, policy implementers and the wider citizenry of Uganda to create an inbuilt mechanism for strategic implementation, monitoring and feedback into the POA.

Given that Uganda is preparing for its next general elections in 2011, the first forum was aptly themed “Enhancing the Credibility of the Electoral Process and the Legitimacy of Electoral Outcomes”. It was co-hosted by the Electoral Commission of Uganda, which is responsible for handling the electoral process in the country.

Through various presentations and discussions, consensus was reached at on the key issues that continue to affect the credibility of the electoral process in Uganda and what needs to be done to enhance the legitimacy of electoral outcomes.

Some of the key policy issues that were discussed included the need to amend the electoral laws to ensure a credible electoral process for the forthcoming general elections in 2011. Implementation of existing electoral laws, ironing out conflicting legislation that affects electoral process and also the credibility of the Electoral Commission was put to question during the discussions.

Other issues included the need to build the Electoral Commission’s capacity, carry out civic education to educate the masses about the electoral process and civic responsibilities, interparty cooperation and the impartiality of security organs and public officers who use their positions for partisan purposes, hence a need to differentiate between party and state.

At the end of the discussions, various recommendations were made, these include;

·         Amendment of electoral laws:

All the electoral reforms that have been presented to Parliament should be finalized and enacted by 26 February 2010. Government has scheduled the following Bills in Parliament as part of the anticipated electoral reforms:

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Consultations should also be undertaken for the conflicting regulations including:

-          Repealing the section of the Police Act, that contravenes the right to assembly

 

·         Credibility of the Electoral Commission:

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·         Capacity of the Electoral Commission

Adequate Human, financial and infrastructural resources should be made available to the Electoral Commission to enhance institutional capacity and efficiency.

·         Civic Education:

The Electoral Commission should work together with other partners such as the Uganda Human Rights Commission, Civil Society Organizations, political parties, Religious leaders to prepare a comprehensive civic education programme that should be rolled out in 2010. The civic education programme should include democracy in a multiparty dispensation.

·         Impartiality of security organs and public officers

Ensure that partisan involvement of security forces and public officers in the election process is eliminated, as well as, use of public resources for partisan purposes.

·         Inter-party cooperation

Inter-party cooperation should be strengthened and adequate public resources provided to the political parties represented in Parliament to enable them build their electoral infrastructure.

 

UNDP which was the fund manager for the APRM Process from 2005 – 2009(This was a basket fund account with contributions from the Government of Denmark (through DANIDA), United Kingdom (through DFID), UNDP and the Government of Uganda) was glad to be a part of the start of the governance forums and looks forward to continue debating through such forums on other topics that concern all Ugandans.

Apart from the Governance forums, the APRM process with UNDP Support has been able to;

-          Develop a country review report which endorsed by the African Peer Review Forum at the African Union Summit in 2008.

-          It also helped to strengthen the capacity of national institutions to support home grown governance agendas. In order to oversee implementation of the of the recommendations from the APRM process, a 13 member National Governing Council (NGC) was appointed by H.E The president of Uganda to monitor the progress of implementation of the programme of Action (POA) and prepare annual progress reports over a 3-year period from 1st January 2009.

-          The APRM country review report was also used as a key input into the National Development Plan which is the new government development plan focusing in wealth creation for all Ugandans. The Good Governance thematic paper, one of the 23 background papers that informed the National Development Plan, is based on the recommendations and findings of the APRM report.

-          And finally, the Government has also mainstreamed the APRM into its processes offering to take over the financing of the institutional costs of the APRM national governing council and its secretariat which is now based at the National Planning Authority. This has enabled the continuity of critical capacities developed within the national institution.