A shadow report that arrives late is a shadow report that Commissioners may never read. Timing is one of the first skills taught in RFLD’s manual, Reporting on the Maputo Protocol: a manual for shadow reports. The manual’s first calendar exercise is simple: find the date of the examination and count back.
What Rule 79 says
The African Commission’s 2020 Rules of Procedure set out a timeline for each State review. Rule 79 contains the key dates:
Six months before the session, at the 180-day mark, the Chair of the Commission asks the State to confirm that it will present its report. At 120 days before the session, the electronic version of the State report must reach the Commission. At least 30 days before the examination, shadow reports must reach the Secretary to the Commission. After the examination, concluding observations are adopted at the next session, and never more than two sessions later.
Rule 79(3) is the shadow report rule. It says that organisations or “any interested party” shall send their contributions, including shadow reports, to the Secretary at least thirty days before the examination of the report. It adds that contributions should follow the Commission’s Guidelines on Shadow Reports and “speak to the actual Report.”
That last phrase matters. A shadow report is a response to a specific State report. It is a different thing from a general human rights report on a country. The 30-day clock only starts to mean something once the State report exists.
Counting back: a worked example
The 89th Ordinary Session gives a clear example. Its public segment runs in Dakar from 12 to 21 October 2026. Zambia’s review is scheduled on 16 October. Counting back 30 days gives 16 September 2026 as the latest date for a shadow report on Zambia. The other three State reviews at the session give deadlines on 15 and 17 September.
The manual recommends planning backwards from that date, with a margin. A working calendar might include:
- the date the State report was published on the Commission’s website
- the date by which evidence collection closes
- the date the coalition validates the final text
- the submission date, a few days before the 30-day limit
- the date by which briefing notes reach the Country Rapporteur Commissioner
- the deadline for registering to make oral statements
The manual’s planning calendar template, in Annex H, sets these out in a single table.
Where to find the dates
The hardest part is often finding out when a State will be examined. The manual points to several sources that work together. The Commission’s States Reporting Status page shows which reports have been submitted and which are pending. The State Reports page publishes the reports themselves once received. Session agendas usually confirm examination dates only weeks before a session. Alerts from organisations such as the International Service for Human Rights often bring the same news to civil society.
The practical advice is to watch for your State’s report. Once it appears online, count back 30 days from the likely session and start work.
Dates move
The manual warns that session dates can change. The 89th Session is an example. The Commission’s 86th Final Communiqué had announced a private segment from 5 to 15 October and a public segment from 21 to 30 October 2026. The 88th Final Communiqué, adopted on 31 July 2026, and a media advisory issued on 28 September gave 12 to 21 October for the public segment. The later documents prevail. Always check the most recent communiqué before fixing a deadline.
Reviews can also be postponed. Kenya’s first Maputo Protocol report was listed for the 69th Session in November 2021 and was not considered then. Civil society groups preparing for that review had to wait, and then refresh their evidence. The lesson is to plan for delay and to update a report before a rescheduled review.
Other deadlines that sit around the 30 days
A shadow report is one part of a wider calendar. The manual flags several related deadlines:
Applications for observer status are due three months before the session at which they will be considered. Under Rule 34, the provisional agenda goes to States Parties and observers seven days before the session and is posted online at the same time. Registration for oral statements usually closes two to three weeks before the session; for the 89th Session, it closed on 27 September 2026. The NGO Forum held before each public session has its own registration and resolution deadlines, and for the October 2026 Forum, draft resolutions were due on 5 October.
Start earlier than you think
Thirty days is a minimum. The manual is clear that a credible shadow report takes months, since it requires evidence collection, consent procedures, coalition validation and translation. The State report usually reaches the Commission 120 days before the session. A coalition that starts work when the report is published has roughly three months to produce its submission.
Groups that want to prepare before the State report appears can still act. They can build their evidence matrix around the eight thematic clusters of the Maputo Protocol reporting guidelines, so that when the State report arrives, the work is to compare and respond. RFLD’s summary of the manual sets out the full planning sequence.
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.
