Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions They should be assured of their ownership of the final report and the fact that the NHRI decides who outside the organisation will receive it. They should be aware that the CA will produce surprising and even unwelcome results as it provides a vehicle by which the various views of all NHRI leaders and staff are articulated and presented. The team should stress that the NHRI alone will decide what response to make to the final report but that the leaders should be committed to giving its proposed strategies and actions full and careful consideration. NHRI leaders should understand, however, that one of their responsibilities will be making a formal response to the report and then reporting annually on the implementation of accepted strategies and actions. If dates for the assessment visit have not previously been agreed, the briefing with the NHRI leaders should also canvass possible dates. If the NHRI decides to proceed with the CA, dates should be set provisionally with the preliminary team, subject to later confirmation by the NHRI and the organisations supporting the CA. 3.2.2. The Memorandum of Understanding During the preparatory visit, on the basis of the briefing and full understanding of what a CA entails, the NHRI should decide whether to proceed with the CA and, if so, it should provide its formal agreement. The preparatory team will provide the NHRI with a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the NHRI and the APF, setting out the responsibilities of the NHRI, the organisations assisting the CA and the CA team. The MOU will be agreed between the NHRI and the APF. The preparatory team discusses the draft MOU with the NHRI’s leaders and the final document is agreed between them. It can be signed by the NHRI’s head on behalf of the NHRI during the preparatory visit or soon afterwards. It will be signed subsequently by the APF director. A model MOU is attached (Appendix 3). 3.2.3. Preparations Once the NHRI formally agrees to the CA, the preparatory team can start work on preparing for the assessment visit. The NHRI appoints a senior person to be Liaison Officer for the CA team. The Liaison Officer works with the preparatory team during the remainder of the preparatory visit. In particular the preparatory team explains to the Liaison Officer how the CA will proceed and what requirements the CA team will have during the assessment visit. The Liaison Officer and the preparatory team identify key background documents that the CA team should read and analyse before the assessment visit. Background documents will usually include the NHRI’s legal framework, its Standard Operating Procedures and internal rules and regulations, recent annual reports, the current strategic plan, annual work plans, documents on the structure of the NHRI and relevant reports. They can also include external documents, from government ministries and agencies, local NGOs and CSOs, INGOs, academic researchers, APF, UNDP, OHCHR and other national, regional and international actors. A list of documents likely to be included is attached (Appendix 4). Together the Liaison Officer and the preparatory team also identify outside a limited list of external stakeholders to be interviewed during the assessment visit. They should be people with existing knowledge and experience of the NHRI and its work, who are able to comment on its current capacity and capacity needs. They should be drawn from a broad range of interest areas to ensure different perspectives, for example, government, NGOs, international organisations, the judiciary and legal profession, academic centres and the media. These interviews are not external evaluations of NHRI performance. Rather, they serve as confirmation (or contradiction) of internal perceptions of the NHRI’s strengths and weaknesses in order to validate or challenge what those inside the NHRI think. The external stakeholders to be interviewed are not selected to be representative of NHRI partners or priority areas but simply to provide informed external perspectives on potentially subjective views within the NHRI. For that reason, it is not necessary or desirable to try to interview every stakeholder who might have something to say. 22