In March 2011, the ICHRP published an Approach Paper to outline the challenges of assessing the impact and effectiveness of human rights work, and the role and relevance of human rights principles in this process. As a next step, the ICHRP convened a practice and research workshop to further explore the issue, bringing together human rights advocates, evaluation practitioners and theorists, donors, policy researchers, development professionals and other relevant experts. The objective was to reflect on current challenges and opportunities and particularly how approaches to evaluation themselves impact human rights work.

The workshop was not designed to explore or identify the ‘best’ methodologies or practices, although some good practice was indeed exchanged. As one participant said, there are almost as many impact assessment tools out there as there are actual assessments; therefore, a shift to examine the issues of core principles is more valuable at this point. The workshop was intended primarily as a forum to:

a) reflect on the underlying political and normative issues and concerns rather than technical solutions;

b) discuss how to change the terms of the debate around evaluation and impact assessment and define possible directions of change, taking into account the complexities of human rights work.

This report does not attempt to summarise the proceedings of the workshop, although its structure loosely reflects the agenda of the meeting. Instead, it draws together key issues that emerged from the discussion and raises a number of important ways of thinking, including questions to be given further consideration. It also draws on literature that was not discussed at the workshop, where appropriate, to complement or clarify issues further. In keeping with the spirit of the workshop, remarks and comments are not attributed by name but speech marks (“ “) are used to indicate when participants are quoted verbatim.