Defending Dignity A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions on Monitoring Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Perception and opinion surveys are very relevant to monitoring ESCR as they can directly capture people’s views on the functioning and policies of the State. Information from household perception and opinion surveys brings out the individual perspective or the “voice of the people” in human rights assessments. However, the method, with its focus on subjective information, could potentially fall short of producing reliable and valid indicators for monitoring human rights consistently. It may also not be adequately representative, because of limitations in coverage, and may yield measures that cannot support or allow cross-sectional comparisons. Nevertheless, in some instances, this method can yield information that supplements other kinds of indicators in human rights assessments. Well-known household perception and opinion surveys include the Gallup International Association, the Afrobarometer, the Latinobarometer, the East Asia barometer and the Eurobarometer, which act as international measures of public opinion or perception on democracy, governance, livelihoods, participation, conflict and crime. 6.1.4. Data based on expert judgements Data based on expert judgements is data generated from a limited number (or sample) of “informed experts”. Like household perception and opinion surveys, the information generated from experts is essentially judgment-based or subjective. However, it can be translated into a quantitative form through coding. The difference with these surveys is that they only capture the opinion of experts, who should be well informed about the topic. A major advantage of using information based on expert judgments is that it can be collected quickly and can be effective in presenting a first assessment of the situation. Nevertheless, data based on expert judgements has been criticized for a lack of validity and reliability and for not being representative of the realities on the ground. There are also critiques relating to the lack of transparency in the selection of experts and not providing a systematic basis for justifying their opinions. Freedom House is an example of an initiative that uses expert judgements to assess and rank countries according to political and civil freedom. Another well-known initiative is Minorities at Risk, which follows the status and conflicts of politically active groups using multiple sources of information, such as the media, government reports, non-governmental reports and expert opinion. 6.2. HOW CAN SECONDARY DATA BE OBTAINED? At the national level, a large amount of secondary data will be publicly available on the website of the National Statistical Office or Bureau of Statistics. This is particularly true of censuses and surveys. Another source of data on government policy or programmes is the evaluations carried out by the Government itself. States often invest resources, time and money in the evaluation of their policies and programmes to determine whether they are operating efficiently and effectively. Many of these evaluations will be available on the website of the relevant government ministry, or possibly through the Ombudsman or Auditor-General. Governments also often report data to international institutions and processes. For example, if your government has submitted a ‘Voluntary National Review’ of its progress towards the SDGs to the annual UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development, that report will be available online and may contain relevant findings, data and commitments. There has been a big push in recent years for governments to “open data” in order to increase transparency, accountability and citizen engagement. In this context, numerous governments around the world have joined the Open Government Partnership, committing to reforms that would increase the amount of publicly available information. There are many examples of open data initiatives within the Asia Pacific region, including website portals and apps for citizens to access relevant government data. NHRIs can consider encouraging or supporting these kinds of initiatives as a way to increase the information at their disposal for monitoring. Developing a memorandum of understanding with the National Statistical Office or Bureau of Statistics is another way of strengthening the collection of data related to human rights monitoring. 62