9.7.9 International action Suggested national action plan content: • Proposed measures to strengthen cooperation with regional and international human rights organizations; • Proposed measures of cooperation with other countries on human rights matters, including comparing experience in the implementation of national action plans; • Submission of overdue reports to the United Nations treaty monitoring bodies; • Active follow-up to the conclusions and recommendations of the treaty bodies; • Measures to make reports submitted to the treaty bodies available to the general public; • Increased cooperation with Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights; • As applicable, steps to follow up the conclusions and recommendations of Special Rapporteurs; • Where appropriate, drawing on international funding and technical assistance for the implementation of national action plan components; • Where appropriate and requested, provision of funding and technical assistance for the promotion and protection of human rights in other countries. Human rights activities have developed as an important area of international cooperation. The United Nations and other international and regional bodies carry out programmes in the area of monitoring, standard-setting, technical assistance and research. The international focus on human rights issues has facilitated the promotion and protection of human rights in individual countries, which have drawn inspiration and received technical guidance from the work of the international community. Any country seeking to improve its human rights performance should consider how it can contribute to international human rights work. Such efforts will assist in promoting human rights elsewhere and enable interested countries to benefit from the experience, technical assistance and resources of others. Countries with development assistance programmes should include the promotion of human rights as an important element in the programmes. National human rights action plans can serve the very useful purpose of providing a framework for the development and implementation of assistance programmes. Countries whose own resources are limited may wish to enter into arrangements to receive technical assistance from others. This has been done by a number of countries that have established national action plans to date. In some cases, they have designated specific plan activities as particularly appropriate for implementation with international assistance. Others have simply expressed a more general interest in receiving assistance for their implementation. 9.7.10 Proposed monitoring and evaluation mechanisms The plan should provide for its own monitoring and evaluation mechanisms to emphasize the seriousness of the enterprise. More detail is provided in chapters 11 and 12. An important part of the monitoring and evaluation process is the establishment of time frames both for the plan as a whole and for individual activities. The plan should also outline how the monitoring and evaluation process might be carried out. It will probably not be necessary to go into detail because it is not always possible to foresee at the outset the best methods of conducting the monitoring or 84