Wrap-up: October 2014 Discussion

Publish Date: 
Thursday, October 30, 2014

Thanks to all who read and contributed to this month’s blog discussion.  The blog set out to explore some of the issues raised by the development of methodology and mechanisms by which to monitor National Action Plans for Human Rights, using Scotland’s NAP as a case-study example.

Points were raised about the collaborative nature of the development of Scotland’s National Action Plan and whether this collaborative process had successfully made its way through to the monitoring process. In particular, whether the monitoring process would involve local groups monitoring implementation on the ground.

Questions were also raised about how the planned methodology being employed – the Theory of Change – was influencing the selection of indicators and levels of ambition for the outcomes; and regarding potential strategies for addressing the gaps between what SNAP can and needs to measure in terms of progress.

A key theme that I think ties together all of the issues and questions raised, is the importance of a collaborative approach, and not only to the development of a National Action Plan, but in the continuation of that participative ethos through implementation as well as monitoring.  In developing outcomes, indicators and targets, people with direct experience of a failure to have their rights respected and those local organisations who provide people with support, are perhaps best placed to be able to help those designing monitoring frameworks to understand what the goals should be, what progress will look like and how quickly that progress can and should be realised. 

When indicators are identified that you do not currently have the data to adequately measure progress with, this does not mean that those indicators should not be selected.  They need to be highlighted (in particular to national bodies with the responsibility for measuring a nation’s progress) as areas requiring data and the methods of data collection may in turn require innovative solutions.  It may again be that this is an area where people with direct experience and supportive local organisations hold solutions to potential data gaps.  Developing qualitative methods such as case-studies and longitudinal samples harnessing the experience of local people and organisations, may help to measure progress in particular amongst marginalised populations who often experience disproportionate levels of  human rights abuses.

Facilitator: 
Alison Hosie
Working Group(s):