RECALLING FURTHER, the Decision adopted by the APR Forum at its session held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in January 2008 requesting the African Union to recognize the APRM as an autonomous body within the AU; ALSO RECALLING that at its 11th session held at Sharm El-Sheik, Egypt, in July 2008, the Assembly adopted a Decision in which it stipulated that “the APRM structures … shall be part of the processes and structures of the African Union”; REAFFIRMING the Decision adopted at the 23rd Ordinary Session of the Assembly held in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, in July 2014, Assembly/AU/Dec/527 XXIII, which stipulates that “the APRM shall be an autonomous entity within the AU system”, exercising autonomy in its financial and budgetary processes while its legal personality, structure, administrative, human resources and financial management shall be based on the standard procedures of the African Union system; REITERATING that Regional Economic Communities remain the critical building blocks for Africa’s economic integration; MINDFUL of the critical role that the APRM is expected to play in the monitoring of Agenda 2063, the African Union’s overarching framework for the continent’s development, as well as in following up on the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, based substantially as they are on the Common African Position; MINDFUL ALSO of the fact that the APRM is required to be a lead player in the implementation of other major frameworks of the AU such as the African Governance Architecture and the African Peace and Security Architecture; and RECALLING the General Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the Organization of African Unity [OAU], adopted by the Heads of State and Government of the OAU; Statute of the African Peer Review Mechanism, August 2016V11082016 3