The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) report, which is expected to confirm that the IRA has largely refrained from paramilitary and criminal activity since July, will be published in Dublin later today.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern and Northern Secretary Peter Hain will publish the document at lunchtime, following two hours of discussion on how best to work towards a deal to restore the North's political institutions.
The IMC members will hold a press conference in Belfast this afternoon for the purpose of answering questions about their findings.
Mr Ahern and Mr Hain will meet under the auspices of the British-Irish Inter-Governmental Conference, one of the institutions established under the Belfast Agreement.
They will discuss plans for a series of meetings with the North's political parties before Christmas to try to narrow the gap between the parties on a range of issues.
These include a DUP demand for a reconstitution of the police board to reflect the party's increased electoral strength; the DUP's desire to see the Parades Commission reconstituted for the same reason; the Sinn Féin demand for the introduction of "restorative justice" projects; and a range of other issues.
The governments hope that the next IMC report, which is not due until the new year, will show that the end of IRA activity has endured.
The Taoiseach has said he would like to push for agreement on the restoration of the suspended power-sharing executive and Assembly by Easter. The coming series of talks is designed to get as many issues out of the way before then as possible.
Yesterday, SDLP leader Mark Durkan said Stormont should be restored now that the cause of its suspension two years ago had been removed. He said if today's IMC report confirmed an ending of paramilitary activity by the IRA, then "a countdown to restoration" should begin.
He was speaking in Downing Street after leading a party delegation for talks with the prime minister, Tony Blair.
"Now that the big stone has been rolled away in terms of IRA decommissioning, the veto on the institutions that went with the IRA's failure to decommission should be gone as well," he said.
"What the two governments need to be doing together is showing that they're working on the basis that we are now in a countdown to restoration of the institutions."
Mr Durkan told The Irish Times that Dublin and London should also seek to bring "positive pressure" to bear on all parties in Belfast. At the same time they should avoid what he called "competitive concessions", which only deepened cynicism in the political process. He also warned against "privatising" policing and justice reforms leading to local arrangements in specific communities. "We don't want to see the Patten recommendations salami-sliced at both ends to please the DUP and Sinn Féin."
In the weeks ahead, the SDLP will hold further meetings with the DUP and with the Ulster Unionists.