Accra, Aug. 17 GNA - Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku, Minister of State in charge of Regional Cooperation and NEPAD, on Wednesday said Ghana's pursuit to accede to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) had generated "a lot of goodwill for the country among the international community."
He said the APRM country reports would provide basis for a comprehensive governance reforms and capacity building as well as address the continuing concerns about corruption.
Dr Apraku was speaking at a workshop for journalists in the Southern zone of the country on the implementation of the APRM in Ghana. The workshop, with participants drawn from both the State-owned and private media organisations, was to update the media on Ghana's APRM implementation and programme of action.
Some of the regions that formed the Southern zone include Central, Greater Accra, Eastern, Western and Volta Regions. Dr Apraku said the objective of the APRM report was to enhance Africa's ownership of its development agenda as well as identify, evaluate and disseminate the best practices in governance. He said the APRM was also aimed at fostering political stability, economic growth and regional integration as well as identifying deficiencies and capacity gaps and make the necessary recommendation to address those issues.
He said even though 23 countries had acceded to the APRM only Ghana received the APRM Support Mission as well as the first to complete the first stage of the Country Self-Assessment process in February 2005 at Abuja.
Dr Apraku also hinted that the next stage of the APRM reviewe process that would take place in Abuja in the nest few months would focus more on democratic and political governance, economic governance and management, corporate governance and socio-economic governance. He called on Ghanaians not to politicise the APRM process since no particular regime was being reviewed as being speculated about but rather Ghana as a whole.
The Minister also expressed concern about the continued negative image of Africa portrayed in the western media, which he said did not augur well for the NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development) process for it to achieve its goals.
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