BRUSSELS: A self-described “core group” of African countries says it is determined to help implement pro-poor policies throughout the continent by establishing a “peer review” system to monitor fiscal expenditures and social policy.

Finance and planning ministers from 14 African countries - Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda - pledged this week to be transparent in their budgets and open to critical review from their peers.

“We have a saying in Africa: If your neighbour’s house is on fire, you must help put the fire out,” Tanzanian Finance Minister Basil Mramba said. “But first, you must be looking for the fire.”

The idea for such a peer review system is spelt out in broad terms in the New Africa Initiative (NAI), a “home grown” plan to revitalize the continent that emphasizes the need for African ”ownership” of development policies.

One African finance minister said that delegates acknowledged the continent was a long way from agreeing on the practical application of a peer review system. But those assembled wanted to move beyond paying “lip service” to the idea and would begin the process themselves, not waiting for total consensus.

The NAI was the focus of discussions at the second so-called ’Big Table’ conference of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), which ran from Oct 15-16 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which will transform into the African Union (AU) next year, adopted the plan at the body’s final summit in Lusaka, Zambia, this July.

“Any system has to be based on trust - on mutual trust. If we see a neighbour going in the wrong direction, we must be able to tell them that,” said Mramba, who delivered a paper to the ”Big Table” conference on how to manage donor aid. “The modalities for a peer review system in Africa are as important as the subject itself,” he said.

For ECA Executive Secretary K.Y. Amoako, a peer review system is part and parcel to the concept of African ownership of the development process and good governance is the sine qua non.

“Not because good governance is something African governments must do to receive funds. No. But because the governments have realized the necessity of being accountable to the people,” he said.

The “Big Table” itself is an initiative designed by the ECA to promote frank dialogue between African finance ministers and their counterparts in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Amoako said ministers had not shied away from discussing historically sensitive issues like corruption.

“We cannot afford to behave in the same way... So we did not avoid the “c-word”. You cannot discuss accountability without discussing corruption,” he told reporters.

“There must be a new code of behaviour. The peer review system will help us to both learn from each other and hold each other accountable,” said Amoako.

He said that the heads of state who launched the NAI - Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, Frederick Chiluba of Zambia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt - would meet “shortly” to agree on guidelines to “underpin such a review”.

Although debate has just begun on what shape that system will take, one possible model is that used by the OECD’s Development Action Committee, wherein countries scrutinize whether aid is being distributed in a coherent, cost effective manner and whether governments are meeting agreed targets. —Dawn/InterPress Service.