Seventy representatives of civil society groups in Africa from the southern, eastern, western and central African regions met over two days in Johannesburg, South Africa on May 26-27 to discuss questions of how to strengthen democracy through NEPAD. The conference identified a number of concrete strategies for tackling the challenges confronting civil society in its engagement with the African Peer Review Mechanism. These strategies will address the need to publicise and share research findings, the need to establish civil society 'nodes' to improve co-ordination, the need for the establishment of a working group and the need to establish a Pan African Civil Society. The major task of the working group will be concerned with setting of norms and standards for credible democratic governance, with special focus on elections and accountability of public representatives.