The IGAD South Sudan office on Wednesday convened a two-day meeting in Bishoftu, Ethiopia on IGAD High Level Independent Experts meeting on the revitalisation of the 2015 peace agreement.

The East African regional bloc said in a statement that the meeting was attended by 22 South Sudanese experts from the academia, civil society organisation as well as renowned South Sudanese practitioners.

It said the meeting was also attended by the chairperson of JMEC Festus Mogae, the Executive Secretary of IGAD and the IGAD Special Envoy for South Sudan. Representatives of the AUC, UN and EU are also present at the meeting.

The regional body pointed out that the objective of the meeting is to create a forum for independent experts to meet in an informal setting and engage in a frank dialogue and make recommendations as an input to the revitalisation process underway decided by the IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government at their summit in Addis Ababa on 12 June 2017.