The Mutual Review of Development Effectiveness in Africa is a unique exercise in mutual accountability undertaken by the UN Economic Commission for Africa and the OECD. The report is prepared by joint expert teams under the joint management guidance and supervision of Directors in both institutions, and in collaboration with the NEPAD Agency. The joint nature of the report is the anchor of the methodology set out below:

(i) The report is designed to be accessible and of practical use to policy-makers.

•  the audience is intended to be senior-level policy makers, as distinct from a specialist technical audience, though the report draws on multiple more technical sources for its evidence;
• each of its 18 topics is contained within 2 pages of text including accompanying graphics, designed so that the reader does not have to turn the page to finish the topic.

(ii) The coverage is comprehensive:

• The report is concerned with development effectiveness in general, as distinct from the narrower issue of aid effectiveness;
• It is therefore divided into 4 broad clusters (sustainable economic development, investing in people, good governance and development finance) which are in turn divided into 18 topics – one of which is official development assistance;
• The list of topics is reviewed by Directors in both institutions at the start of the preparation of each report.

(iii) The entry point of each topic in the report is commitments undertaken by either African governments or their development partners:

• it is concerned with commitments -  which are to undertake actions, rather than targets or aspirations – which relate to the desired outcomes or results.
• its focus is on commitments made at a collective level rather than those made by individual governments;
• it adopts a symmetrical approach, looking equally at commitments by Africa and its partners;
• as there are often multiple commitments stretching over time, the report summarises these rather than citing the full texts;
• the time-period covered is typically the last 5-7 years.

(iv) The report makes an important distinction between the delivery of commitments and the results achieved:

• the delivery of commitments relates to the actions taken by governments;
• these are assessed at the collective level for Africa and its partners in turn – the report does not attempt to assess the delivery of commitments by individual governments;
• the results achieved relate to the outcomes, and in this sense to the wider issue of development effectiveness;
• these are again described at a collective level for Africa as a whole;
• where relevant the report provides a break-down between North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa, but does not go beyond this to country-level examples.

(v) Each topic concludes with an assessment of key future priorities :

• these reflect the assessment both about whether commitments have been delivered, and about whether they have achieved the desired results;
• they are divided into priorities for Africa and its partners, and typically limited to three for each side of the partnership.