Transcript
ROMULO NAYACALEVU: The tool kit is really a response to constant recommendations from the UN treaty committees to Pacific governments to provide more data or provide more figures and information in their national reports to the expert committees. So one of the ways that has been identified is through clear indicators that those that are writing reports as well as those that are going to report to the treaty committees can work with and eventually prepare them for when they have constructive dialogue in Geneva.
TIM GLASGOW: What are those core indicators?
RN: It's looking at particularly all of the articles. For example, if you are to take the UDHR even though no country reports on it, that has 30 human rights articles so what the tool kit is doing is looking at the articles and breaking that down to the indicators that could assist those that are writing the report provide the relevant information. The indicators are then further then broken down by de-segregation. So whether that [means] looking at looking at numbers in a rural community, looking at numbers in a maritime district or for example, looking at the number of girls going to school, and then also to look at where you can get the sources of information. So basically, whoever is drafting their reports whether that's a committee in a country or an individual, this tool kit will then just show them the way in terms of collating the information and putting that together in the report.
TG: For Pacific governments, what's an example of how they could apply this when collating data or writing policy?
RN: I'll just take a step back, one of the big challenges for us as Pacific Island governments, in terms of reporting, is really what do you report on? And if you are reporting, is information relevant and do they go to what the experts sitting in Geneva would actually want. So that then has provided us some guidance on what to provide in this tool kit. And as said three years ago we brought in statisticians as well as human rights and gender petitioners [to] have a dialogue around what are the indicators, what indicators would work for them as well as how can they source the information for the indicators and that's really what has come out of this. And basically, it is also a tool kit that can guide implementation for when the government [who is] then implementing the recommendations or the articles they can actually see: "Ok, this is a workable indicator for us, we can take this indicator and the tool kit then shows them how to bescially implement it. But it's important to note that the indicators are not exhaustive, there are some that we feel are particularly relevant and as the statisticians identified they can continue to expand on how this applies to their different countries.
TG: So it's a starting point for them for them?
RN: Yes. That's, in fact, what the idea is behind producing this tool kit. And also important in fact for many countries reporting to the human rights committee is a burden and a lot of the reports are overdue. So, for example, one of the countries in particular, their report was 21 years overdue to one of the committees and a lot of that comes down to, you know, if there is enough capacity to report - one and to whether they know what to report on. Having worked on this area of the Pacific for so many years, that's the consistent message from governments - provide us some tools, work with us so that we can continue to report. Because the reality is that there is a lot of work on the ground that's done but it's about bringing that all together in a report and submitting it to the experts for their consideration as part of their obligations in ratifying the humans rights treaty. For example, if we were to look at education and what that looks like in the Pacific - the government would say 'we've made education compulsory, we've made education free, we've provided all of these incentives to encourage people to go to school'. So that's great on the face of it, but when you are reporting to the committee on the rights of a child, what they would be interested in is how are girls accessing education? What about rural girls? What about girls with disability? So a lot of these indicators are important sources of information for the state and report. So when you saying 'we've made education free for everybody', then there will be those layers and addressing those layers so when the committee then looks at the report they say "great, here is a holistic application" as opposed to a very general statement about them that will provoke a lot of questions.
TG: How have governments responded to it?
RN: As I said we worked with most of the governments in the Pacific because we felt this is what they needed so that took three years. We took them for the first workshop in 2014 and there was a follow up last year and we started to validate some of the indicators we had started to identify and through that process of elevation we have come up with the indicators that are in the tool kit. But also launching in Nadi, it was before senior government officials across the Pacific also, and most of them have taken their copies and indicated it's going to be very useful for them. And particularity this meeting in Nadi was with regards encouraging Pacific bodies to have co-ordinating bodies around reporting, so not only streamlining reporting, but also to take it away from an ad-hoc approach to reporting and make it more tangible and feasible.
TG: It sounds like it's going to make quite a big difference in reporting and then, in turn, to how human rights are improved across the Pacific as well.
RN: For us, as human rights practitioners in the region we anticipate a time when all Pacific governments have up to date reports and they're in Geneva to share real experiences from the region. And Geneva and the world need to hear the great advances that are happening in the Pacific region. So I guess a reporting exercise and reports such as this will really showcase the Pacific to the world.
That was Senior Human Rights Adviser for the SPC Romulo Nayacalevu.
