15.3. COMMUNITY ADVOCACY Community pressure for implementation of the recommendations is important. No NHRI can succeed by going alone. It needs to be part of a broad-based coalition advocating for changes to improve human rights performance. The national inquiry process itself identifies likely allies among those with an interest in the issue being examined and, through its report, provides a focus for their advocacy. The NHRI should encourage NGOs, especially the organisations that represent victims of the violations investigated, to join it in a joint advocacy campaign in support of the inquiry’s recommendations. Joint strategising and joint advocacy will be stronger and more influential. Presenting the inquiry’s conclusions and recommendations in community forums – conferences, workshops, annual meetings, online discussions and other social media, and so on – is a continuing task. Groups need to be reminded of the inquiry’s recommendations and they need to be informed of the progress of implementation. 15.4. MEDIA ADVOCACY The media will continue to be important to a broadly-based advocacy campaign in support of the inquiry’s recommendations. The follow-up strategy should ensure that the report continues to receive media attention through interviews with and material in the public media. As a result of the inquiry, the inquiry’s members will be identified by the media and in the media as experts on the issue investigated, with opportunities for promoting the recommendations in the media both by soliciting opportunities for interviews, statements and articles and by responding to media requests for interviews and statements. They should ensure that they maintain their knowledge of the issue, including developments after the conclusion of the inquiry, so that they remain credible, influential, expert spokespersons who are taken seriously by the media and the community. 15.5. MONITORING AND REPORTING ON IMPLEMENTATION The NHRI also has a continuing role in monitoring and reporting publicly on implementation of the inquiry’s recommendations. It can encourage the Government and others to whom the recommendations are directed to respond publicly to the recommendations to indicate which ones it will implement and when. It can then request periodic statements of progress in implementation and make its own assessments and public comments on progress or lack of progress. A good means of monitoring implementation is the preparation and publication of a follow-up report on an annual basis, at least for the first few years after an inquiry has reported. These later reports would principally focus on implementation – a kind of report card on the response to the inquiry’s report by the Government and others to whom recommendations were made. The NHRI should announce, at or about the time of the release of the inquiry’s report, that it will be monitoring implementation and reporting on it after the first year and subsequently. In that way, the Government and others know that the NHRI will not be walking away from the inquiry’s report but will be promoting public accountability for its implementation. This is an effective way to continue to promote implementation. As part of its medium- and longer-term strategy, the NHRI should also work with key Government and community stakeholders to ensure that they too take on a role in monitoring the implementation of the inquiry’s recommendations. The placement of this role in agencies external to the NHRI recognises that other actors have a responsibility for the protection and promotion of human rights.It also recognises the fact that the NHRI will have an increasingly limited capacity to take full responsibility for the outcomes of the inquiry, given competing issues and demands. Chapter 15: Follow up | 75