Addis Ababa — The Economic Commission for Africa participated in the validation workshops of the 3 rd African Governance Report held in the past month in the Republic of Tunisia and the Republic of Chad. The workshops, whose theme was on "elections and management of diversity", were to enable the two countries give their final input to the AGR III which the ECA is producing in collaboration with the UNDP.

The events were held respectively in Tunisia on June 21, 2013 and in N'Djamena on July 16, 2013. They were organized by the National Research Institutes of each country. Host of the Tunis workshop was Institut Arabe des Chefs d'entreprises (l'IACE ) while Cabinet MAGI. Communications, Press and Services staged the event in Chad. The NRIs were selected by ECA through competitive bidding.

The research institutes presented their conclusions and recommendations to stakeholders among which were government officials, parliamentarians, politicians, members of the steering committee, civil society organizations, university teachers, and media professionals .

Participants described the level of discussions as generally high, indicating an impressive degree of interest in, and understanding of, the subject of elections and diversity in the two countries.