Briefing Note: HRBA Monitoring and Evaluation

Overview

Monitoring and evaluation of activities are also essential for tracking whether activities are being carried out as planned and whether they are having the anticipated impact. A coherent and coordinated monitoring and evaluation system can ensure that:

• relevant, timely and accurate data are made available to enable informed decision making;
• selected quality data is reported to national programme leaders; and
• national programmes are able to meet donor and international reporting requirements.

The UN Common Understanding of a Human Rights-Based Approach recommends that, “Programmes should monitor and evaluate both outcomes and processes guided by human rights standards and principles”. However, most current development practices are usually focusing on the monitoring of desirable outcomes only, and seldom pays any significant attention to the quality of the processes. The equal attention to monitoring both outcome and process is a fundamental premise in human rights monitoring.