US embassy cable - 05NAIROBI868

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NAIROBI 000868 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
STATE FOR AF/E, AF/EPS, EB/IFD, EB/ODF 
LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHERS 
TREASURY FOR ANNE ALIKONIS 
 
E.O. 12958:  N/A 
TAGS: EAID, ECIN, ECON, PGOV, SOCI, KE, NEPAD 
SUBJECT:  KENYA LAUNCHES SELF-ASSESSMENT ON GOVERNANCE 
UNDER NEPAD 
 
 
Sensitive-but-unclassified.  Not for release outside USG 
channels. 
 
1 .  (SBU) Summary: Kenya has launched a self-assessment of 
its governance practices and performance under the African 
Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), itself an offspring of the 
New Economic Partnership for Africa (NEPAD), an Africa-wide 
organization with the ambitious goal of revitalizing the 
continent's politics and economy.  Thus far in Kenya, the 
APRM exercise has produced only a slew of new acronyms and 
an elaborate bureaucratic structure to legitimize and 
support it.  As such, it's possible it will prove to be no 
more than an elaborate form of window dressing to conceal 
the absence of substantive improvements in governance.  On 
the other hand, the APRM's upcoming "internal audit" of 
governance in Kenya could prove to be a powerful tool for 
citizens to critique the country's performance in this area 
and thus point the way toward needed reforms.  Despite 
insistence that the APRM be an African initiative paid for 
and fully "owned" by Africans, in Kenya at least it is 
being funded in part by foreign donors.  End summary. 
 
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Background: NEPAD's Vision for Africa 
------------------------------------- 
 
2.  (U) Amid much fanfare, and under the leadership of the 
Ministry of Planning and National Development, Kenya 
publicly launched on February 23 the African Peer Review 
Mechanism (APRM) country self-assessment.  According to the 
organizers of the event, Kenya is one of the first four 
"front-runner" countries to subject itself to the APRM, 
along with Ghana, Rwanda, and Mauritius. 
 
3.  (U) The APRM springs from the New Partnership for 
Africa's Development (NEPAD), itself an African Union 
initiative whose strategic framework was adopted by the 
Organization of African Unity in July 2001.  According to a 
generic brochure picked up at the February 23 launching, 
NEPAD is nothing short of "a vision and strategic framework 
for Africa's renewal."  At the February 23 APRM launch, 
Ambassador Bethual Kiplagat, a member of NEPAD's "APR Panel 
of Eminent Persons" spoke in passionate terms about NEPAD 
and the APRM as originating from the painful recognition by 
African leaders at the turn of the century that the 
continent had become economically marginalized due to poor 
leadership and governance by Africans themselves.  NEPAD, 
in Kiplagat's words, is a chance for an "African rebirth." 
 
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Goals and Methodology of the APRM 
--------------------------------- 
 
4.  (U) According to Kiplagat, the APRM is "an audit on how 
we are governing ourselves today."  In Kenya, the process 
began in March 2003, when the country acceded to the APRM 
and formed a temporary task force to kick start the 
process.  The government then held two "national 
stakeholders forums" in July, 2004, and with input from a 
NEPAD APRM Support Mission the following month, 
subsequently established a 33-member APRM Governing Council 
composed of representatives from the Government of Kenya, 
the private sector, academia, and civil society. 
 
5.  (U) Under the APRM structure established in Kenya, the 
Council and the NEPAD Kenya Secretariat (located in the 
Planning Ministry) are to provide overall direction and 
oversight to four specialized "lead technical agencies", 
all of whom are either fully- or quasi-independent local 
think-tanks or policy institutes.  The four technical 
agencies are each responsible for carrying out the APRM in 
one of four "thematic groups:" 
 
-- Democracy and Political Governance; 
-- Socio-Economic Development; 
-- Macro-economic Governance; 
-- Corporate Governance. 
 
6.  (U) The APRM process appears divided and subdivided 
into a bewildering series of cycles, stages and phases. 
Currently, Kenya has just launched the first "stage" - an 
self-assessment, or "internal audit," of its governance 
trends and environment.  Kenya intends to conduct this 
internal audit from the bottom up through a series of 
questionnaires, interviews, and focus group discussions 
directed at representative samples of all Kenyan 
households.  The audit will also include input from an 
expert panel.  The exercise is meant to gather information 
and public opinion on current trends and national 
performance in the four thematic groups outlined above. 
 
7.  (U) Kenya's Stage One self-assessment is due to be 
completed by May.  Crucially, it includes a draft "Program 
of Action" for closing the gaps in governance revealed by 
the self-assessment.  Thereafter, Stage Two will involve a 
"Country Review Visit," or external audit, by non-Kenyan 
NEPAD representatives from other African countries.  Stage 
Three will involve preparation of an APR Team Report 
summarizing the findings of the two audits and analyzing 
their implications for Kenya's governance and economic 
development.  In Stage Four, the APR Team Report goes to 
the "APR Forum" (about which we know little; we assume it 
is a non-Kenyan NEPAD entity) to be vetted and then 
returned to the Kenyan head of state. In Stage Five, the 
report will be made public in Kenya and to other NEPAD 
countries for further discussion and for the extraction of 
best practices and lessons learned. 
 
-------------------- 
Who's Paying for It? 
-------------------- 
 
8.  (U) In his comments, APR Eminent Person Ambassador 
Kiplagat was passionate in insisting that Kenya participate 
in the APRM "for our own sake, and the sake of our wives 
and children."  The process, he added, "Must be owned by 
us," and he reiterated language in NEPAD literature calling 
for African countries to ensure ownership of the process by 
funding APRM self-assessments themselves, and not relying 
on donor funding.  It was thus one of the ironies of the 
February 23 event that it was delayed by an hour because of 
an earlier signing ceremony in which the UK and Sweden 
agreed to provide financial assistance to the self- 
assessment exercise.  Further, Kenya had earlier received 
assistance from the EU to launch the APRM in 2004. 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
Comment: A Worthy Endeavor or a Waste of Time? 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
9.  (SBU) Our understanding of the APRM remains 
rudimentary, but we are concerned by the number of new 
acronyms it is already generating, by the length of time it 
is taking to implement, and by the complexity of the 
bureaucratic structures and processes it has created in 
Kenya alone.  In short, we fear this may turn out to be yet 
another paper exercise in which an unnecessarily convoluted 
process is used as window dressing to conceal the absence 
of tangible achievements in terms of governance reform. 
 
10.  (SBU) That said, Kenya and the other three "front- 
runners" should be given credit for undertaking the APRM 
exercise voluntarily, and Kenya deserves extra credit for 
the inclusiveness it has built into the process through the 
extensive participation of civil society, the private 
sector, and academia.  Further, should the internal audit 
manage to remain independent of excessive government 
manipulation, it could prove to be a powerful, grass-roots 
tool for examining and critiquing governance at all levels 
of Kenyan society.  In sum, time will tell whether the APRM 
is a waste of time and money -- or whether it is a worthy 
endeavor which contributes to a more honest, transparent, 
and democratic political culture in Kenya.