(iv) Identify Africa-based rating agencies, develop a set of clear policy options and strategies of engagement with these agencies and submit same for approval; 123. This indicates that, if the APRM is going to achieve its aspiration of becoming fully reliant on African funding, first, all countries that are in arrears need to clear their debts within a reasonable period; and second, the level of annual contributions needs to be increased to at least USD 200,000.00 per member state. In appreciation of this challenge, the Revitalisation Committee has endorsed a proposal from its members to raise the level of Member States’ annual regular contributions from the current USD 100,000.00 to USD 300,000.00. (v) Develop benchmarking exercise between APRM metrics and indicators and those used by rating agencies; (vi) Develop methods by which to evaluate and report on the work of rating agencies vis-à-vis African countries; (vii) Identify Member State Champions for each Flagship Project (one per region) to coordinate the theme with a Member of the Panel. 124. Even then, we need to be realistic in our expectations. Excessive and unsustainable reliance on external sources of funding is a challenge faced even by the AU Commission, which gets 96 per cent of its programme budget from external partners (AU Strategic Plan 2014–2017, p. 93). This experience should teach us that raising the level of annual membership contributions is not going to be a panacea for our funding challenges. Accordingly, our resource mobilisation strategy will need to be multi-pronged, innovative and integrated into our day-to-day activities. Outcome 3: Resource Mobilisation and Financial Management 120. The issue of political will and commitment addressed in Outcome 2 above will manifest itself in the willingness of member states to finance the Mechanism on a sustainable basis. As a homegrown, unique and globally leading initiative, the APRM is one of the most iconic inventions of our continental organisation. Its founding fathers knew that in order for this unique initiative to serve African interests, and African interests alone, all its costs must be covered from African sources. This might, and indeed often does, pose serious challenges in the short term but this is an aspiration the APRM must remain loyal to, cherish and pursue in every way possible. 125. With this broad objective in mind, we undertake to pursue the following series of steps during the period of the strategic plan: (i) In order to have a clear break with the legacy of doubts and uncertainties about the financial management of the APRM Secretariat, the APRM Secretariat will recruit a reputable firm of auditors to carry out a comprehensive audit of APRM accounts as well as the now defunct APRM trust fund accounts and publish the same on our website; 121. Assuming all members pay their dues, Member State contributions would cover only about 50 percent of the APRM budget. The approved APRM budget for 2016, for example, is USD 7,056,251.00. On the other hand, if each of the 35 countries pays the USD 100,000.00 they are obliged to pay annually, that would leave in excess of USD 3.5 million to be covered from other sources. What is worse, far too many countries have been in arrears, in some cases for several years. Today, member states owe the APRM well over USD 12 million. (ii) Undertake an inventory of the state of national contributions by member states, identify those in arrears and, under the guidance e of the Committee of Focal Points, approach the countries in arrears to clear their debts within a set timeframe; (iii) Develop and submit for approval by the Committee of Focal Points, and later by the APRM Forum, options for revised membership annual contributions; 122. Financial and technical support from strategic partners has been instrumental in filling the funding gap, but even this source has almost dried up of late. The APRM Trust Fund, managed by UNDP, commenced with 10 contributors including development partners and member States, but today it appears there is none. (iv) Develop and submit for approval by the Committee of Focal Points, and later by the APRM Forum, a detailed strategy on how to resuscitate and recapitalise the trust fund as a matter of urgency; –26–