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HRIA offers a research structure that links human rights standards to policies; it empowers users to actively contribute to human rights promotion by showing the relation between the effects of a policy and the human rights obligations of their government. Furthermore, it contributes to awareness-raising regarding human rights; for example, it increases the understanding of people in organisations of the relation between their daily work and human rights standards.

Awareness-raising about human rights situations due to HRIA takes place on two levels. During the HRIA process the awareness of those who are directly involved in the assessment process increases (e.g. government officials that are being interviewed during an assessment). And after the HRIA process has taken place the awareness increases of those who read the results in reports, lobbying documents or case study descriptions. It is therefore important that reports with the outcomes of HRIAs are published, where possible including a reflection on whether and how the recommendations were used (Bakker et al., 2009: 451).

The outcomes of a HRIA can be used on three levels. On local and national level, HRIA helps to improve the human rights situation by providing people with a rights-based approach for lobbying policy makers. On the international level HRIA can help facilitate comparisons between countries on how they each implement the same human rights obligations. This can be helpful when lobbying international institutions such as the World Bank.