The Benefits of Treaty Body Reporting 3 SESSION PREPARATIONS ¡¡ In advance of this session: üü Write down the following questions on two separate sheets of paper: • Why are State parties reporting to the Treaty Bodies? • What are the benefits of reporting? üü Prepare four or five sets of these questions to be used in group activity. ¡¡ If you would like to conduct this session for other stakeholders, you should adapt the questions to your target audience. For example, in the case of a training for a national human rights institution, the questions could be: Why national human rights institutions engage in the reporting procedure of the TBs? What are the benefits of submitting alternative information to a TB? Please refer to Chapters 5 and 6 as well Annex 2 of the Part I (Manual) of this Training Guide for further information on the role of other stakeholders in the reporting procedure. SESSION SEQUENCE Step 1: Group activity: what are the benefits of reporting?  Duration 15 minutes a) Remind participants that one of the main functions of the Treaty Bodies is to examine State party reports on implementation of the human rights contained in the relevant treaty and mention that this process should not be seen as a burden but rather as an opportunity for State parties to take stock of the human rights situation in the country. Mention to them that you would like the group to reflect, in a written exercise, more on the opportunities or benefits that reporting to the Treaty Bodies represents for State parties. Stress that this exercise does not require them to move from their tables (5 minutes). b) Distribute to each table the sheet of paper you have previously prepared containing the question Why are State parties reporting to the Treaty Bodies? Ask them to write down, individually, two short responses (which could be one word) to this question. c) Once everybody has written down their responses, ask participants to move the paper on to the person next to them, who will be adding two responses different from what is already written on the paper they receive. This process is repeated until every participant at each table has written down two ideas or responses to the question. Allow between 45 seconds and 1 minute per participant to write down his or her responses. This means that a maximum of 5 minutes should be allocated if five participants are seated at each table. d) Then distribute to the tables the second sheet of paper you have previously prepared, containing the question What are the benefits of reporting? Ask them once again to write down, individually, two short responses (again could be one word) to this question. Repeat c). Step 2: Debrief  Duration 10 minutes a) Ask the last person who wrote on the sheet, at each of the five tables, to read out some of the responses. Record and cluster the responses on a flipchart. TIP ÎÎThe recording and clustering of responses on the flipchart could ideally be done by an assistant facilitator. 31