Encouraging and assisting reform of discriminatory processes or electoral systems. Try to ensure, among other things:        Access to the UN’s work by minority groups; Participation of the least powerful (or non-dominant) in the process of programme planning and analysis of situation affecting women and children; Assessing the efficiency of the already existing consultation mechanisms before establishing new processes; Particular attention to understand the power relations and cultural behaviour and respect for cultural appropriateness of participation; Creation of ownership by the targeted group; When possible envisage promoting joint initiatives with minority organizations; As much as possible facilitate collaborative efforts and better coordination. TOOL NO 2: VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENTS: STEPS AND TECHNIQUES This tool has been adapted from the UNDP Toolkit for a Human Rights Based Approach and Gender Analysis for Local Governance. It was developed by UNDP Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Rights-based Municipal Development Programme (RMAP) project. It includes a ‘Vulnerable Groups List’, which is an extensive list of pertinent indicators and questions anchored in a human rights framework to identify potentially vulnerable groups and assess likely human rights issues affecting them in the country context. The list includes groups such as women, persons with disabilities, national minorities, Roma, displaced persons, refugees and returnees, children, the elderly, trafficked persons, detainees, HIV positive persons, homosexuals and the very poor. The Vulnerability Assessment for Roma is provided as an example of how to target assessment to a specific minority group. The questions can be adapted for other minorities. Using this tool: Step 1: It is useful to begin with a desk-study of the existing socio-economic, political and culturally relevant data of the local community. This can be done by reviewing reports and publications on the area as well as existing statistics at the local level. All data collected needs to be disaggregated by sex and by ethnicity, religion and language. It is important to have a gender perspective while conducting the desk review. This means reviewing documents with information about the situation of men and women in the community, paying attention to references to different problems of men and women when reviewing documents about specific vulnerable groups, and most important, by analyzing sex disaggregated data at the local level. The output of the desk study could be a mapping of the major challenges and a few general hypotheses about who might be the vulnerable minority groups in the municipality, the ways in which they experience vulnerability, and the reasons for their vulnerability. Following the desk review, a primary data collection process is necessary to identify vulnerable minority groups, the causes of their vulnerability, as well as to investigate the situation of vulnerable groups with regard to access to local services and decision making in order to set priorities and identify concrete actions to redress vulnerability in the municipality. This is important because data is often missing on the most vulnerable minority groups. To obtain this data you can use quantitative and qualitative methods. The assessment is an excellent entry point for participation of local stakeholders. Chapter 8: Situation Analysis Tools 119