Capacity Assessment Manual for National Human Rights Institutions The CA report must reflect accurately what the CA team has heard, without suppressing, censoring or qualifying views. It must include the various perspectives presented in the discussion groups and the questionnaire responses, especially where those perspectives are inconsistent or significantly different. It should ensure all significant voices are heard and reported. The CA team has no role to decide among the various perspectives which is right and which is not and should not favour one perspective over another. Its responsibility is to report them accurately. The team allocates analysis and drafting among its members, with the team leader coordinating the work and acting as final editor of the text. The ‘first rough draft’ is done quickly so that it can be discussed with the NHRI leaders and senior managers before the team finishes the assessment visit. It is inevitably ‘rough’ both in style and content. This poses inherent difficulties in that the team is providing the NHRI’s leaders with a document that the team itself considers a very provisional and very defective draft. However, in spite of the difficulties, providing the ‘first rough draft’ while the team is still in the country enables the leaders and the team to discuss the CA findings and proposed strategies and actions and the envisaged contents of the final report. The CA team should be clear about the document’s status. It should emphasise that the document provided at this stage is very ‘rough’ in style and content and requires much more work before it could be considered a proper draft. The team provides the ‘first rough draft’ of the report to the leaders and senior managers and then, on the last day of the assessment visit, meets with them, either together or in separate groups (one for the leaders and the other for the senior managers) to go through the contents of the draft and discuss it. Providing the draft the day before the meeting gives the leaders and senior managers the opportunity to read it and think about it before the discussion. It enables the discussion to be more useful in allowing considered feedback to the team. However, the team does not expect that the leaders and senior managers will have had time to consider all the issues in the ‘first rough draft’ fully and to make a formal response to it. The team should seek initial individual reactions only. The team’s meeting with NHRI leaders on the final day of the assessment visit should not be rushed. If possible, at least two hours should be allocated to these discussions. The leaders should be asked to set aside the necessary time so that the discussion can be as full and as detailed as possible. The team introduces the ‘first rough draft’, presenting the analysis of the qualitative and quantitative information and explaining the strategies and actions proposed in response to the capacity gaps. If possible, it uses a PowerPoint presentation to enable the principal points to be made clearly. Leaders and senior managers are provided with opportunities to ask questions and clarify issues arising from the draft and the briefing. They are invited to make initial responses to the findings and proposals. The team should take the leaders and senior managers through the proposed strategies and actions one by one and discuss them with them. The team will want to ensure that, before it completes the assessment visit, it appreciates the likely responses from the NHRI leaders to the proposals so that it can develop them further or adjust them in response to the leaders’ views. At the final meeting the CA team also explains the process after the visit and the anticipated timetable. A timetable for this work should be agreed between the NHRI and the team. 3.5. AFTER THE ASSESSMENT VISIT Typically the work remaining to be done after the visit and the time taken for it are: • the team develops the report from the ‘first rough draft’ to a ‘second, more refined draft’ and seeks the NHRI’s formal comments on this second draft: within 14 days of the completion of the visit • the NHRI leaders consider the ‘second, more refined draft’ and prepare a formal response, with comments on individual sections and on proposed strategies and actions: within 21 days of receipt of that draft Chapter 3: The recommended steps in conducting a capacity assessment for a national human rights institution | 39