By Mzimkhulu Sithetho    28 September, 2026

MASERU 27/09/2026 – Lesotho has traversed a not-so smooth journey of implementing the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM). At the accession and mobilization formative stages, Lesotho put up a positive stature towards embracing and implementing the APRM. Of critical importance is the role of civil society in the APRM at the different stages of the process, strengths and shortfalls. Also, there are opportunities that accrue to civil society as it participates in the APRM.

It has been observed that civil society played a catalytic role as an insider in the APRM rather than being an outsider, throwing stones at the glass house with its radical and aggressive advocacy messages towards the government.

Civil society was built into the national architecture of the APRM process, meaning it has, from accession, been perceived as and made to be a central part of the APRM.

Civil society has enormously contributed to the country self-assessment, paying an integral role in the National Governing Council (NGC) of the APRM.

The NGC was chaired by people who emanated from the civil society – both the president and vice-present of the APRM NGC hailed from the civil society.  

Civil society participated during the consultations and monitoring, later becoming an important force behind all efforts to revive the APRM mechanism.

Accession and mobilization: 2004 – 2006

It is common cause that Lesotho acceded to the ARPM in July 2004. It became the 12th country in the whole continent to participate in the early stages of the APRM within the African Union, when the APRM was only a year-old. T

he beginning of the APRM in Lesotho was seen through a consultative workshop held at the national convention centre in Maseru on October, 2005.

It was this consultative forum that led to the establishment of the ARPM focal point domiciled within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Relations. As well, an interministerial subcommittee of Cabinet, responsible for the APRM was established.

At the same time, the National Governing Council (NGC) and the National APRM Secretariat were established. These institutions were intended to oil the wheel for the effective and impactful implementation of the Lesotho APRM.

Lesotho’s Country Review Report (CRR, 2010) describes the APRM NGC as a broad-based and all-inclusive body that is vested with responsibility to manage the national ARPM process.

Suitable for Lesotho’s situation, which is perceived to be homogenous, but is largely heterogenous in thought, the NGC was intentionally designed to be multi-stakeholder in character.

Playing the midwifery role on the implementation of the APRM, civil society debunked the misunderstanding of the ARPM as a government self-assessment, but instead, with its civic education programmes ensured that it is understood as a country process.

Self-assessment and review: 2007-2009

During the period between 2007-2009, civil society contributed largely to the Country Self-Assessment Report (CSAR).

The technical research institutes that played a catalytic role in the APRM implementation through research; the Institute for African Studies (ISAS) of the National University of Lesotho (NUL).

The TRIs played a role in desk research, conducting expert surveys, national citizen surveys, focus-group discussions and expert interviews and validation of the draft CSAR with stakeholders. The draft CSAR was presented to stakeholders, including civil society organisations.

Civil society organisations and other non-state actors supplied crucial information about governance realities surrounding the APRM. The conducted surveys, focus-group discussions and expert interviews provided citizen perspectives beyond government institutions.

During the Country Review Mission (CRM) of 2009, civil society played a major role in providing information, participating in the CSAR validation and examination of the National Programme of Action (NPoA). 

Civil society further identified governance challenges and heard different stakeholder perspectives and also played a catalytic role in building consensus around national reforms.

Implementation and civil society monitoring: 2010-2012 (civil society dimension)

Lesotho’s first and last generation Country Review Report (2010) did not only provide a document for government performance, but was also an important pillar of the country ‘s broad range of governance concerns that affected citizens and non-state actors.

Civil society participated in the development of an NPoA for many actions such as HIVAIDS, education, water and sanitation. Also, civil society was geared for participation in the NPoA’s development in areas such as disability, gender, social protection, community development and public accountability.

 After production of the NPoA, the civil society shifted roles, from participation to progress monitoring on the implementation of the APRM recommendations captured in the NPoA.

In 2010-2012, the South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIIA), Centre for Policy Studies and AfriMap, created the APRM Monitoring Project (AMP), whose intention was to strengthen civil society capacity to track APRM implementation.

During this process of APRM monitoring, Lesotho and South Africa became the two pilot countries for the APRM Monitoring and Advocacy Template (AMAT) testing.

The AMAT was designed to allow the civil society monitor implementation, analyse shortcomings and to develop recommendations for future action.

Also, civil society is engaged in the APRM progress tracking to advocate for reform and engagement of the government on implementation.

A notable milestone was when stakeholders came together to develop the monitoring process in a project that subsequently involved researchers and CSOs.

The CSOs examined progress in four broad areas of vulnerable groups, socio economic issues, governance and service delivery.

During the process, seventy (70) stakeholders, drawn from government, APRM structures, business, civil society, media and the academy were interviewed.

This exercised positioned civil society not only as a participant in the government-led APRM process, but into becoming an independent monitor of implementation.

In 2011, civil society organisations embarked on intensive research that recorded civil society’s concerns and this culminated in the production of the Implementing the APRM: Views from Civil Society – Lesotho Report.

The central finding of the Report was that there was weak public awareness, weak government ownership, weak linkages between APRM recommendations and national planning.

The monitoring further found out that there was weak monitoring and evaluation, poor visibility of the APRM brand, limited follow-through and insufficient connection between government programmes and the APRM.

During the period 2010 and 2011, one of the strongest findings was that of the civil society’s perception about the APRM, in that it was unfortunately too government-owned.

The Implementing the APRM: Views from Civil Society – Lesotho study found out that many CSOs did not understand the APRM sufficiently.

The finding was also that some CSOs did not see its relevance to their own advocacy and civic engagement programmes. This led to some CSOS, which were originally strong in the APRM through spirited participation, to subsequently disengage. The finding was also that no CSOs had a dedicated APRM programme.

Other efforts for ensuring public awareness on the APRM was through extraction of some versions of the CRR (2010) and translating them into Sesotho for citizen appreciation. This effort was complemented by the civil society undertaking a campaign to distribute the Sesotho copies to the six of the ten districts of the country.

Institutional decline: 2012 onward

There has been a debate about whether the APRM completely ground to a halt in 2012 or just that the APRM process deteriorated.

Arguments that supported the view that there was a complete grinding of the APRM to a halt argue that APRM structures experienced institutional decline.

While the Secretariat was still in office, it had no programme that it implemented, as the NGC and other institutions had suddenly become operational.

But those who prefer a less strong assertion in that the APRM process had deteriorated argue that the steam and energy toward APRM implementation had declined, but with the process still on. They argue that the Secretariat was still in office and the focal person still active, but only the NGC, TRIs and monitoring institutions had stopped operating.

Revitalizations through the Lesotho APRM Popular Sensitization: 2021-2025

The Lesotho Popular Sensitisation (LAPS) Project, which was a partnership between SAIIA and the Governance Institute for Sustainable Development (GISD) in 2021, represented an important attempt to reverse the decline from the civil society’s side to engage in the APRM process.

The objective of the LAPS was to increase civil society knowledge of the APRM, build CSO capacity in tracking APRM implementation, strengthening meaningful participation and identifying governance issues.

The LAPS was able to develop evidence-based civil society submissions and prepared civil society for the country’s second-generation review.

Instead of labouring on the question of how can civil society participate in the government-led APRM, LAPS was more concerned about how civil society would organize itself to become an active producer of governance evidence. It was concerned about how CSOs could position themselves as catalysts for analysis and recommendations within the APRM.

LAPS brought together a cohort of women, youth, persons with disability, the diaspora, marginalized groups other human rights advocacy organisations.

The way forward for the civil society’s participation in the APRM

To promote CSO’s role in the ARPM, proposal is that a Civil Society APRM Engagement Architecture that will establish a civil society APRM coalition.

The intent is to create a broad front of non-state actors encompassing governance, disability, women and human rights organisations, youth, labour, professional bodies, academia and the media.

Secondly, proposal is that civil society’s role in the APRM should be reinforced through civil society shadow or alternative reports developed by civil society. This is not to create competition between the government-led and CSO led APRM, but to provide alternative perspectives on the APRM.

Furthermore, there must be an effort to ensure APRM popular sensitization beyond Maseru, that is, to reach the rural communities through civil society and community media popularization efforts.

Efforts must be made to ensure use of Sesotho language for communicating APRM to communities, utilizing community-based platforms such as community radio stations, public dialogue and rural assemblies.

Also, district-level dialogue platforms, community council civil society networks and traditional leadership such as chiefs should be used as important platforms.

Added to the efforts toward ensuring CSO’s role in the APRM is through embracing youth and digital participation. There must be expansion of the civil society in effort to produce the next general of reviews, which embrace digital spaces, especially those led by youth.

Conclusion

The record on APRM implementation and monitoring by civil society suggests that Lesotho did not suffer from an absence of civil-society participation at the beginning of the APRM.

On the contrary, civil society was unusually visible in the original NGC and participated in research, consultations, validation and subsequent monitoring. 

The 2011 civil-society assessment found a low APRM profile, weak integration into national planning, weak monitoring and limited civil-society ownership. The later LAPS process similarly identified the collapse of national structures and the need to rebuild civil-society participation. 

Consequently, the future civil-society role should be understood not merely as participation in an APRM review, but ascontinuous civil-society governance monitoring throughout the entire APRM cycle.

This is particularly relevant now because the 2022 UCG Targeted Review has reconnected Lesotho to the continental APRM, and the report launched in 2025 provides a new body of recommendations around constitutional order, electoral governance and institutional resilience. 

The strongest institutional opportunity is therefore to use the targeted review not as a substitute for the long-delayed second-generation review, but as a bridge toward a revitalised national APRM architecture in which civil society is a permanent co-producer, monitor and public communicator of governance reform.

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