Monitoring implementation and compliance 27 C. Member states The controversy occasionally generated by expert group reports tends to mask the highly cooperative relationship that generally exists between expert groups and Member States. A number of stakeholder States reported close collaboration between expert groups and their national authorities, including on sensitive investigations involving the handling of confidential material. The consultations also revealed a strong interest among Member States for more and closer engagement with expert groups, both with Permanent Missions in New York and with relevant national authorities in capitals. Written submissions called for more bilateral and regional outreach by expert groups, as a means of fostering cooperation and sharing implementation experience. Just as sanctions committees depend on expert recommendations, so too do expert groups depend on Member States for significant information that comprises expert reports. In submissions to the HLR, experts called for greater effort from the UN system to raise awareness of Member States’ reporting obligations and responsibilities; for the Subsidiary Organs Branch to improve its public diplomacy capacity in this regard, in particular through a more modern, informative and lucid website; and for sanctions committee chairs to hold more open briefings on sanctions requirements, as well as to engage bilaterally with Member States who were particularly reluctant to cooperate with expert groups regarding visits or other information. Members of the Iran and the DPRK Panels of Experts, as well as members of the Al Qaida and Taliban Monitoring Team, regularly participate in national, regional and international seminars and workshops designed to raise awareness of their respective sanctions regimes and to promote better implementation and reporting by States. Increasingly, members of “home based” expert groups (where the resolution does not state where the expert group will be based) are participating in similar outreach activities. Although such activities take time from the investigative mandate, the contacts and networks that such activities foster, as well as the opportunity to deliver messages on cooperation directly to relevant national authorities, make the efforts worthwhile. 17. To broaden outreach to Member States, expert groups should consider open briefings and participate in more regional outreach activities to promote the importance of implementation and information-sharing.