AFRICAN UNION AND AFRICAN PEER REVIEW MECHANISM: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES FOR AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT

Over decades, Africa has been facing a lot of challenges such as war\ refuge problems, ethnic and religions violence, arson, electoral malpractice, socio-economic and political backwardness, poor political culture and bad leadership. These problems lead to the establishment of AU and African Peer Review Mechanism to address such challenges. However, the study stands to assess the overall impact of African Peer Review Mechanism on governance performance of African states. In view oj the above assertion, the researchers have employed qualitative method of research with secondary sources and content analysis technique for information gathering and data analysis respectively. The researchers also utilised theory of integration as the suitest and valuable theoretical underpinning that best explained the situation wider study. The study has found out that A frican stagnation, and indeed retrogression in the socio-economic cum political development spheres can be largely attributed to the steady poor governance experienced by many African states. The study has recommended that the success of APRM is premised on the involvement of African citizens and the resolution of many questions as single out in the APRM accord such as electoral democray and human rights violations in African countries.