Accountability and human rights

Human rights indicators are essential to human rights measurement. This chapter considers human rights indicators against the backdrop of the potential role of human rights in development. It considers their role in human rights implementation and in assessing contextual risk within development programs and projects through human rights due diligence. It also analyzes how human rights indicators have been integrated into development practice and frameworks such as the SDGs, and describes the challenges associated with such integration. This chapter discusses why attention to human rights measurement is still warranted, alongside the need to reassess the definition and use of human rights indicators. The chapter reflects on current practice with structural, process and outcome-based human rights indicators, surveying specific examples of each. It concludes with suggestions for improved, evidence-based human rights measurement going forward.