Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions 3.3. BETWEEN THE PREPARATORY VISIT AND THE ASSESSMENT VISIT The MOU between the NHRI and the APF, setting out the responsibilities of the NHRI, the organisations assisting the CA and the CA team, should be concluded as soon as possible after the preparatory visit. In the MOU the NHRI makes commitments: • to give serious and careful consideration to the report’s findings and proposals • to make the report available in full to all staff • to respond formally to the report, indicating which proposed strategies and actions it accepts and will implement and with what timetable, which proposed strategies and actions it does not accept and why, and including an implementation plan for accepted strategies and actions • to report annually to the APF on the implementation of agreed strategies and actions. Once agreement has been reached that the CA will proceed, the members of the CA team are appointed by and drawn from the sponsoring organisations. In the Asia Pacific region, all CAs of NHRIs to date have been led by APF and almost all have included UNDP and OHCHR. This has proved to be very effective. In addition a senior officer of an NHRI that has already undertaken a CA joins the team, providing valuable experience from both the perspective of an NHRI staff member and as a subject of a past CA. Team selection should take into account gender balance and inclusion of persons with gender expertise. A CA team of four or five members is usually adequate for most CAs. The Liaison Officer should collect the documents identified in the preparatory visit and provide them to the CA team electronically as soon as possible after the preparatory visit. The documents provide a basic understanding of the NHRI’s mandate, legal framework and authority, and give a sense of the technical and functional capacities the NHRI needs to operate effectively. Team members can make provisional lists of possible core issues to be addressed during the assessment visit based on these documents. The schedule for the assessment visit should be finalised and confirmed between the Liaison Officer and the CA team leader before the assessment visit. The Liaison Officer takes responsibility for the incountry logistics of the assessment visit, including arranging the schedule of discussion groups and the appointments for interviews with the identified external stakeholders. 3.4. THE ASSESSMENT VISIT The assessment visit is very intensive. It is the focal period of the whole CA. Typically the assessment visit is conducted over two weeks but in a very large NHRI it may extend to three weeks. The assessment visit begins with the focus group discussions. All the NHRI’s leaders, senior managers and all other staff have the opportunity to participate in these groups to provide their perspectives on the current capacities and capacity needs of the NHRI. An additional women’s discussion group should always be held to provide a safe and supportive environment in which women staff can discuss issues specifically from their perspectives, including in relation to the NHRI’s internal functioning and the implementation of its mandate. These discussions seek to identify core capacity issues for the NHRI, required capacities and possible strategies and actions to address capacity gaps. They provide qualitative data for the CA. The groups address three questions: • what does the NHRI do well? • what does the NHRI need to do better to be more effective in undertaking its mandate? • what strategies and actions can be taken to build the required additional capacity? 12