This assignment is a group exercise. Participants, grouped in teams, are required to prepare a mock NHDR on the country and theme assigned to their group. An important part of the assignment is for the groups to outline a minimum common structure for a report to be called an NHDR. Each group is encouraged to design a template which provides the minimum content – such as opening chapter review of HD, basic necessary statistical tables and so on. We need to strike a balance between some criteria for what is necessary for a NHDR format, while leaving scope for creativity in presentation and analysis.
This assignment is meant to provide occasions for useful discussions, exchange of ideas and learning. Cooperation between teams and correctness in the use of the reference unit and any possible shared resource are essential elements of this learning process.
All the assignments will be presented on the 27th of September in the afternoon (2:00 pm onwards).
A short progress review session will be held on the 21st of September (2:00-3:00 pm). This will offer an opportunity to present an outline of the NHDR as well as the introductory note (see below, n.1) and to discuss the progress made and the difficulties encountered.
The final output should be of the form:
The chapters constituting the body of the reports should be (but alternative and more effective structures can be produced) :
For the final presentation, the participants are required to prepare a press kit with press releases as well as a power point presentation illustrating the basic messages of their report, and the defining features of the process envisaged for the production the report.
An additional short note should point out particular gaps in the information available (printed, electronic, cd rom as well as primary data sources) which prevented the team from exploring particular aspects of the issue. Ways in which those specific gaps would have been overcome in real life situations should also be discussed.
Participants will be free to prepare any other additional material which might enhance the presentation or the completeness of their work, e.g. ideas for a cover or particular graphic representations of their statistical findings.
The teams are free to use the complementary materials to the ones provided (see Country notes), using any kind of suitable information available on the web or in the reference unit at Wadham or reading in QEH library.
Teams are free to organise their activities in the way which suits better their respective skills and expertise. All participants are however required to take part with equal effort in the workings of the team. It is expected that the assignment will be completed in 12-15 hours of team work.
This assignment is meant to be the main way for participants to apply the skills and notions which are the object of the summer school, by fostering a greater understanding of the issues at hand and stimulating discussion (within the groups as well as with those participants or speakers in the course who have already experience in the various stages of the production of the global HDRs or the NHDRs).
Given the centrality of discussion and sharing of ideas and experiences in the learning process, this assignment will be useful (and perhaps even enjoyable!) also for participants not directly involved in the preparation of NHDRs.
Further, this assignment represents a way for participants to become aware of the challenges involved in the process of producing a NHDR, of the limitations which have affected past NHDRs and of the elements which have determined their success in advocacy, policy making etc. As this process is increasingly central to the work of UNDP country offices in the field, this knowledge is of great strategic value.
At a practical level, the participants will have to perform a wide variety of tasks, (they will be involved in every stage of the production of the NHDR but the collection of primary data and the collection of the initial reference material). This will entail facing, discussing and solving a wide variety of issues ranging from questions of data availability, to the computation of the indexes, the selection of materials, the presentation of the contents.
The final presentation will be an occasion to discuss each group achievements and challenges problems as well as providing a synthetic review of the themes discussed in each mock-NHDR.
The format of the reports are also intended to guide UNDP in defining minimum standards for what constitutes an NHDR, and what form should quality control take.
