the Causes of Conflict and Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa (2004) lauded the APRM initiative to support national efforts to enhance political, economic and corporate governance.2 APRM is continually working with member states of the AU and AU institutions to entrench the values and standards of democratic governance in the political, socio-economic, corporate and economic sphere (the four pillars). The primary purpose of the APRM is ‘to foster the adoption of policies, standards and practices that lead to political stability, high economic growth, sustainable development and accelerated sub-regional and continental economic integration through sharing of experiences and reinforcement of successful and best practice, including identifying deficiencies and assessing the needs of capacity building.’ The APRM’s mandate was extended by the 28th AU Assembly of Heads of State and Governments to include tracking of the implementation of the continent’s key governance initiatives and monitoring of the implementation of the AU Agenda 2063 and (SDGs) and Agenda 2030. In light of its mandate, the APRM has undertaken reviews of countries’ governance policies and practices, working with civil society, the private sector and state institutions to diagnose governance challenges and provide sustainable solutions that form part of governments’ priority action plans and development targets. Although countries through the APRM have undertaken reviews of areas relevant to women and governance, there is need for more concerted focus on the women, peace and security agenda within existing governance frameworks at the national and regional levels. Strengthening common objectives and identifying priority actions of the respective mandates of the African Governance Architecture (AGA), African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) and APRM will help to build convergence towards gender, peacebuilding and democratic governance synergistically. The APRM has a diagnostic value and its reports or engagement processes at country level can feed into the agenda setting and monitoring work of AGA and APSA in their respective mandates. 2 Progress report of the Secretary-General ‘Implementation of the recommendations contained in the report of the Secretary-General on the causes of conflict and promotion of durable peace and sustainable development in Africa’ UN General Assembly August 2005 A/60/182 7