Building a strong evidence base on women’s rights takes months. Using it only once wastes much of that effort. Module 9 of RFLD’s manual, Reporting on the Maputo Protocol: a manual for shadow reports, shows how a coalition can take the evidence it gathered for the African Commission and adapt it for two United Nations processes: the CEDAW Committee and the Universal Periodic Review.
The starting point: the African Commission
A shadow report to the African Commission follows the Commission’s 2022 Guidelines on Shadow Reports. The main text is limited to 15 pages, with up to 10 annexes. It must reach the Secretary to the Commission at least 30 days before the State’s examination, by email or by post. It can be written in any official language of the African Union.
For the Maputo Protocol, the report mirrors the eight thematic clusters of Part B of the Protocol’s reporting guidelines. The Commission has no formal list of issues. Commissioners prepare their own questions and civil society can suggest them. Follow-up happens mainly through Commissioners’ promotion activities.
The CEDAW Committee
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women works differently. Since June 2022, a simplified reporting procedure applies to all States by default unless they opt out. The Committee sends a list of issues prior to reporting, and the State’s replies become its report. Those replies are capped at 21,200 words. The treaty bodies have also moved to an eight-year predictable review cycle, with interim follow-up reviews.
Civil society has several entry points. Organisations can submit information for the list of issues and send reports before the session. They can take part in private and public briefings, and send follow-up information later. According to IWRAW Asia Pacific’s guidance for the 92nd session in February 2026, NGO reports are limited to 3,300 words for a single organisation and 6,600 words for a coalition, footnotes included. They are submitted in Word through the OHCHR online system. English and French are among the accepted languages.
The CEDAW Committee also has a formal follow-up procedure. It selects a small number of recommendations, typically two, for follow-up within one to two years. NGOs can send information by the State’s deadline.
The Universal Periodic Review
Stakeholder submissions to the Universal Periodic Review follow technical guidelines issued for its fourth cycle. Limits are 2,815 words for an individual submission and 5,630 words for a joint submission. Endnotes and annexes do not count towards these limits. Up to 10 annexes are allowed. Paragraphs and pages are numbered, and the text can be in any of the six UN official languages.
An organisation may send one individual and one joint submission per review, and may join several joint submissions. Submissions go through the uprdoc.ohchr.org platform, indicatively at least six months before the Working Group session. The guidelines ask stakeholders to prioritise follow-up of earlier recommendations and to propose SMART recommendations.
Key differences to plan for
The manual highlights a few differences that shape the adaptation work:
- Length is counted in pages at the African Commission and in words at the UN.
- Deadlines range from 30 days before the examination at the African Commission to about six months before the session for the UPR.
- Only the CEDAW process includes a formal list of issues, which creates an extra entry point.
- Language options differ: AU official languages for the Commission, UN languages for the UN bodies.
Cutting one evidence base several ways
The manual suggests a practical approach. A coalition builds one evidence base, then adapts it. The full report for the African Commission follows the eight Part B clusters. For the UN bodies, the same evidence is mapped to the articles of the Convention and the Committee’s General Recommendations for CEDAW, and to the implementation of earlier recommendations for the UPR.
The evidence matrix is the key tool. If each claim is tagged with the articles and recommendations it relates to in each system, the coalition can extract each version quickly.
Coalitions are rewarded everywhere
All of these mechanisms favour joint work. The African Commission encourages joint reports, and both UN processes give coalitions more room: the CEDAW Committee doubles the word limit for coalitions, while the UPR allows joint submissions alongside individual ones. For women’s organisations, working together pays off across systems.
Learning from existing guides
The manual acknowledges existing resources. A 2023 training manual by UNDP and Equality Now, produced under the Spotlight Initiative, already teaches Maputo and CEDAW reporting side by side in seven chapters. RFLD’s manual builds on that work and adds depth where it is thinner, especially on ethics and on advocacy at African Commission sessions.
The aim is efficiency. Organisations with limited staff can multiply their influence by planning for several mechanisms from the start. RFLD’s country law profiles provide a common legal baseline that can feed reports to any of these bodies.
About the report
This article draws on RFLD’s report Reporting on the Maputo Protocol: a manual for shadow reports, published on 4 October 2026. Read the summary, download the English edition or the French edition.
