Djibouti, 1 November 2017-In the spirit of solidifying APRM’s position to drive governance agenda in Africa, specifically in the implementation of the extended mandate of the APRM on the monitoring and evaluation of AU Agenda 2063 and the SDG 2030, a two-day expert group meeting was held in Djibouti on the 30th and 31st of October 2017.

The meeting was to validate the report on “The APRM Continental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting System”, a joint initiative of the APRM and the UNECA. The primary objective of the meeting was to bring together leading experts and representatives of APRM member states in the field of governance, monitoring and evaluation to consider, review and validate the draft report of the APRM Continental Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting System in terms of approach, structure and content. It was also to provide recommendations to the APRM on how best to improve the quality of the draft report and enhance the practicability of the proposed recommendations and action points.

The validation meeting was attended by experts from the UNECA, APRM Continental Secretariat, the APRM National Governing Councils (NGCs), the APRM National Secretariats, NEPAD, African Union Commission, Regional Economic Communities, National Statistical Bodies, SAIIA, AGI, IGAD and other independent experts.
At the end of the 2-day validation meeting, the following recommendations were made:

1. It was agreed that the experts will meet in December 2017 to validate the indicators of the M & E report after the mappings done on the AU Agenda 2063 and SDG 2030 from goals to indicator levels at the recently concluded validation meeting.

2. The APRM Continental M & E report needs to be simplified and used as an educational tool to train members of the NGCs in APRM Member States.

In conclusion, the need to validate the draft report on APRM Continental, Monitoring and Evaluation reporting system before the end of 2017 was further reiterated to ensure the successful achievement of the mandates and objectives of the APRM.