Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions 3.4.2. Interviews with external stakeholders and partners The interviews with the external stakeholders ask the first two of the three questions asked of internal groups, that is: • what does the NHRI do well? • what does the NHRI need to do better to be more effective in undertaking its mandate? External stakeholders are not asked specifically about capacity development actions for the NHRI as they may not have sufficient knowledge to be able to provide useful information. The purpose of the external stakeholder interviews is only to validate the findings from the focus group discussions with the NHRI leaders and staff and from the documentation previously provided to the CA team. It is not to obtain a performance evaluation of the NHRI. The program of external interviews can include both individual interviews and focus group discussions. Focus group discussions may be better than individual interviews for certain categories of external stakeholders, for example, NGOs or government ministries. Using some groups enables a larger number of external stakeholders to contribute to the CA. There should be about six, and certainly no more than eight, meetings in total, individual and group, with external stakeholders. 3.4.3. Defining the core capacity issues Following the completion of the focus group discussions, the NHRI’s core capacity issues are identified. These issues will be the basis of the questionnaires that provide the quantitative component of the CA process, in addition to providing another opportunity for individual qualitative comments. The CA team prepares a list of the most significant capacity issues to emerge from the discussions and finalises the list collectively, in consultation with the NHRI’s Liaison Officer. The list should include gender equality and gender mainstreaming issues. The issues identified for the questionnaires should be the most important issues raised in the discussions. The CA team should ensure that the number of issues is strictly limited so that the task of completing the questionnaire is not excessively onerous or time-consuming. Limiting the number of issues also makes analysis of the data more manageable and, where translation is required, it makes that task less difficult. Every issue is the subject of a separate page in the questionnaire and so the number of pages reflects the number of issues. Generally the CA team will identify about 12 or 13 critical capacity issues but the number should never exceed 15. The quantitative information provided by the questionnaires is very important to the CA process and so the team should do everything possible to assist the NHRI leaders and staff to complete the questionnaires by making them as clear and concise as possible and limiting the scope to the most critical capacity issues. The UNDP CD framework has identified and classified core development issues, technical capacities and functional capacities. These can assist the CA team in identifying the particular NHRI’s core capacity issues, acting as a kind of check list for analysis of the contents of the discussions. Under the UNDP framework core development issues and capacities are organised into five areas, adapted to NHRIs: 1. Internal policy and procedure formulation: the institutional ability to develop and implement internal policies, procedures and processes to carry out the NHRI’s functions and mandate effectively. This includes the existence of a clear mission and strategy, clear business processes, effective staff management, and good use of information and communications technology. It also includes good policies and procedures for gender equality within the NHRI, on gender mainstreaming throughout the NHRI’s work and on sexual and other harassment. This capacity is considered in relation to the NHRI’s human, financial and physical resources. 28