Producing the Evidence that human rights advocacy works: First steps towards systematized evaluation at human rights watch

Abstract

In the community of human rights activists and professionals, we share a conviction that we make a difference. But attributing positive change to our own work is often uncertain. At the same time, as our presence in the media and in discussions with policy-makers grows, and is seen to grow, we face a hostile audience as never before. There are many - our direct targets and others - who would like to discredit and dismiss human rights organizations, or are skeptical of the value of condemning human rights abuse in the absence of an appetite among influential governments to apply meaningful leverage. Both the hostility and the skepticism raise the stakes for us to explain our purpose and our tactics, including in terms of how we assess that we are effective. Yet even major, established human rights organizations are still getting to grips with more systematically evaluating whether and how we achieve the outcomes we seek from our advocacy efforts. How do we locate the reliable evidence that our approaches to human rights problems actually work? And if we do, how do we make that exercise truly worthwhile by establishing an organizational culture of evaluating and learning? This paper aims to present Human Rights Watch's workin-progress as we think through and pilot a systematized evaluation process. © The Author (2009). Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.