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Follow-up represents a continuation of the advocacy effort, impact monitoring and influence assessment over the long term (table 5). The goal is to maintain the focus on development and to provide a solid foundation for relevant policies and practical programmes and projects in the months and years ahead.
Table 5: Implement Long-Term Follow-Up
a. In shaping and implementing a follow-up strategy, enlist the institutions that have contributed to the content of the HDR.
The Philippines represents a successful approach based on a human development network.
b. Maintain the communities of practice and the knowledge networks on the dedicated website so as to stay up to date on the theme and issues, including technical issues, and to manage new knowledge.
c. Collaborate with statistical users and producers to identify methods and approaches to institutionalize the collection of data on the sorts of indicators and levels of disaggregation that will be needed to monitor progress in the country in the various areas of human development, including development disparities across population groups.
Human Development Report 2005: Chhattisgarh, in India, provides a good example.
By monitoring and regularly publishing data on indicators to gauge the impact of policies and track progress in socio-economic development, the HDRs help focus attention on the achievement of national and international development targets such as the Millennium Development Goals.
The UNDP Country Office, Regional Bureau, or Regional Centre and other stakeholders should therefore systematically review the impact of all a country’s or region’s reports, as well as the global HDRs, on policy and the national or regional development agenda and the contributions of these reports to progress towards global development targets, including the Millennium Development Goals. Convene 6- and 12-month meetings of the steering committee and other stakeholders to review impacts and progress in addressing the report themes and related issues.
d. Remain alert to join with the government, non-governmental actors and other stakeholders whenever opportunities arise to implement the report recommendations or to affect other initiatives related to the report themes and issues.
Asia and the Pacific, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Latvia, Mongolia and Thailand offer good examples of follow-up strategies that have led to engagement with governments and other actors in significant efforts to implement HDR recommendations or undertake other relevant responses.
e. Placing all aspects of human development at the centre of national policy debates requires a high-quality product produced at regular intervals after an adequate period of preparation.
A cycle of one or two years should become the norm for the production of HDRs. Include updates on progress in realizing the recommendations of past HDRs. The contribution of the HDRs to government policy in Chile has been possible especially because of the regularity of the reports. Guatemala represents an example of the cumulative impact of the regular publication of reports. India has been prolific in producing subnational HDRs.
f. Regularly report all results of impact monitoring, influence assessment and long-term follow-up to UNDP.
UNDP can thus ensure that these results resonate in subsequent consultations with national and regional stakeholders locally and elsewhere, as well as in UNDP country programmes of cooperation. Regular reporting to UNDP thereby helps nourish the HDR-UNDP feedback loop (box 1).
