Paper short abstract:

The African peer review mechanism is an innovative governance template that not only offers alternative methodologies to understanding African lived governance realities; the tool also has the potential of offering alternative models of governance.

Paper long abstract:

Abstract:

Propelled by the technological novelties, knowledge has become more divested, accessible and therefore ready for use. This means that African knowledge production hubs should be at the front of cutting edge new ways of analyzing the world and its context at best. Sadly, this has not been the case. The unique potentialities offered by especially the fast changing realities and comparative environments have not yet been fully tapped into, rendering African research institutions yet again impotent at producing ground breaking alternatives. Faced with this lacuna, the paper proposes to discuss how knowledge is produced within the governance thematic. A case study of the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) - an African governance template for analyzing political, socio-economic, and cooperate governance performances and discrepancies will be presented. The aim is to show case, through certain country case-study analysis, the different kinds of methodologies that the APRM utilizes for contextual understanding and eventual offering new perspectives on the governance trajectories that countries could take. The country case studies of Kenya (Eastern Africa), Mozambique (Southern Africa) and Ghana (Western Africa) will be presented as illustrations. The aim of the paper is to query whether the alternative methodologies that the APRM utilizes to understand governance issues in Africa could actually offer alternative models of governance that could make Africa to conveniently cope with the dynamics of both continental and multi-polar global politics.

Key words:

African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM , governance template, alternative methodologies for African governance environments, governance, African lived realities, comparison, contextual understanding