CHAPTER ONE: THE APR PROCESS AND ITS LAUNCH IN ALGERIA enriching the NGC‟s debate in a two-day workshop that brought together a broad spectrum of stakeholders. 21. On 30 November and 1 December 2005, Madame Savané, at the personal invitation of the President of the Republic and accompanied by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the APR Secretariat, participated in a discussion at the Palais de la Nation in Algiers, held by the Ministers involved in implementing the five-year 2005– 2009 Plan. The main objective of the plan was to bolster the credibility of the APR process and ensure the effective participation of all stakeholders in the process in Algeria. It was an opportunity to test how this innovative initiative could be integrated within the ARP framework. 22. This novel exercise in the country‟s practice of governance was extremely fruitful as a result of the contribution of the Ministers and the debate initiated among NGC members. The exercise emerged as an example of best practice that ARP member countries might want to emulate. 23. The formalisation of the draft national self-assessment report was the focus of ongoing working sessions in the week following the workshop. The NGC visited wilayas to generate discussion; meetings were held with civil society associations and journalists, and radio broadcasts and conferences were organised. The NGC subsequently held a series of working sessions and the information collected was incorporated into the draft self-assessment report. This draft was submitted for consideration by an inter-ministerial council on 7 August 2006, and then a government council on 29 August 2006. These councils endorsed the continuation of the exercise with strict adherence to the APRM‟s provisions for the preparation of a draft PoA. 24. These two preliminary documents were submitted to the APRM in November in order to update the international review team that had visited Algeria from 10 November to 5 December 2006. 1.1.3 Country Review Mission 25. 34 Mrs Marie-Angélique Savané, Member of the Panel of Eminent Persons of the APRM (APR Panel) led an International Review Team that visited Algeria between 10 November and 5 December 2006. Algeria is the fifth country to be reviewed, following Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya and South Africa. The CRM was made up of a team of 21 experts from 14 member states of the AU, consisting of independent experts selected on the basis of their specialisation in the four APRM thematic areas, experts drawn from strategic partner institutions – the AfDB, the African Economic Community (AEC) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – and members of the APR Secretariat.