an area where the African Commission’s human and peoples’ rights promotion and protection system needs strengthening. As part of this effort to strengthen its monitoring role, the African Commission took a decision through its Resolution on Developing Reporting Guidelines with Respect to the Extractive Industries ACHPR/Res. 364(LIX) 2016, mandating the Working Group to elaborate State Periodic Reporting Guidelines on Articles 21 and 24 of the African Charter. This document starts by setting out the context and scope of the Guidelines, followed by the Guidelines themselves, which provide the details of the issues on which states are expected to report in demonstrating their compliance with Articles 21 and 24 of the African Charter. Because these provisions have received so little attention in the past, there was also a need to further elaborate on the content of the obligations under Articles 21 and 24 the African Charter in the context of the extractive industries. To this end, the Guidelines accompanied by an explanatory note on the contents of Articles 21 and 24, providing further reference on the legal basis of and background to the Guidelines. II. Context and scope The principal audience that these reporting guidelines target are the State Parties to the African Charter concerning the preparation of the sections of their State Reports that relate to Articles 21 and 24 of the African Charter. The reporting guidelines as well as the explanatory note that accompanies it also aim at facilitating the work of other stakeholders, including non-state actors and particularly civil society organizations in their participation in and contribution to the preparation of State Reports as they relate to Articles 21 and 24 of the Charter. It also aids the African Commission in the consideration and review of Periodic State Reports, particularly as they relate to the themes covered here. The Reporting Guidelines identify the issues under Articles 21 and 24 of the African Charter on which States Parties should provide information in their Periodic Reports to the African Commission generally and with specific reference to the operations of extractive industries in their territories in particular. As part of and in order to identify the full scope of the issues that should be covered under Articles 21 and 24 of the African Charter, the Reporting Guidelines are accompanied by an explanatory note that elaborate the principles underlying these rights; substantive contents of the rights; and State Reporting Guidelines and Principles  | vii