The Health Rights of Women Assessment Instrument (HeRWAI) is a strategic tool to enhance lobbying activities for better implementation of women's health rights. A HeRWAI analysis links what actually happens with what should happen according to the human rights obligations of a country. It examines local, national and international influences. The HeRWAI analysis consists of six steps, which analyse a policy that influences women's health rights. Each step consists of information and questions to guide the analysis. Explanations, examples and checklists facilitate the answering of the questions. The analysis produces a set of recommendations to improve the impact of the policy, as well as an action plan to lobby for adoption of the recommendations and to raise awareness about the findings of the analysis.

It was officially published in 2006. Since then the instrument has been introduced to more than 120 organisations via introductory trainings. Numerous analyses have been done in approximately 20 different countries, and have led to actual policy change.

In 2009 Aim for human rights researched the use and experience of the instrument amongst its users. The main aim of the revision was to make the use of the document more practical, and enrich it with new examples and a new layout. The overall structure of the document has not changed.

For more information about HeRWAI go to the Women´s Human Rights Impact Assessment Centre.