Loide Jason
The African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) Namibia has drafted a national programme of action from the country review report to address the governance challenges identified here, such as gender-based violence.
Salome Kambala, who is a member of the national governance council, said the programme of action has been developed by a technical working group at the recently-held workshop in Swakopmund by both the APRM continental and local secretariat as well as external stakeholders.
Addressing journalists in Windhoek yesterday, Kambala said the workshop identified challenges such as weak content coherence in reference to the recommendations of the country review report and national development strategies.
Naita Hishoono, who is also a member of the national governing council, said another challenge is the costing discrepancies, centralisation of designing and costing, funding gaps and the low absorptive capacity of funds.
Hishoono highlighted that the workshop made 23 recommendations, of which some touched on progress towards gender equality, particularly equal access to education for girls at all levels. The recommendation stated that there must be a commitment of additional financial and human resources to address school abandonment among girls at primary and secondary school level, and to enhance vocational training for job creation.
The workshop further recommended that they must set up and operationalise a national committee on gender statistics, design a strategy for the collection and generation of sex-disaggregated data, including ICT data, to support gender-sensitive policymaking.
Namibia, together with stakeholders, developed a draft national programme of action in areas considered a priority to the government.
The primary objective of the programme of action is to guide and mobilise the APRM participating countries’ efforts in implementing necessary changes to improve the state of governance and accelerate socio-economic development.
“It is, therefore, imperative that such salient issues are addressed to enable the full realisation of the impact of the national programme of action.
She added that the national plan of action embodies articulated priorities and actions needed to accelerate the effective delivery of development results in the country.
“Following this is a progress report which the country submits to the APRM continental secretariat after thorough harmonisation of the national programme of action with the existing national development strategies such as the poverty reduction strategy, National Development Plan 6, Agenda 2063 and 2030
SDGs.
Festus Hangula from the Namibian APRM chapter said the recommendations from APRM reviews are summarised in national programmes of action that are harmonised with national medium-term strategic frameworks and plans for implementation.
“Beyond the APRM process, these values, principles and recommendations strengthen our democracies and constitutionalism, and require constant maintenance, support and effort by the AU community, whether at the sub-national, national or continental levels,” he noted.