From Theory to Practice: Reflections on how we can Meaningfully Measure Human Rights Impact

What are the biggest challenges and opportunities when an organization is trying to understand the human rights impact it has achieved? Building on more than 12 years combined years of practical evaluation and impact assessment experience across various organizations in the human rights field, the authors reflect on the key lessons learnt while trying to balance organizational needs of reporting, planning, and accountability with the substantive need of understanding how to break down human rights progress and how it happens. Reflections will be articulated in four key challenges, each with practical ideas to build on: the data challenge—what kind of information can give us the most meaningful view of human rights impact; the progress challenge—how we might capture the incremental nature and gradual pace of human rights impact; the target challenge—how best to balance the need to work towards realistic targets with setting an ambitious agenda for change; and finally, the context challenge—how we might compare human rights impact across countries and acknowledge different operating contexts.