Defending Dignity A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions on Monitoring Economic, Social and Cultural Rights CASE STUDY: ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS INDICATORS IN NEPAL In an effort to develop the appropriate tools and methods for monitoring ESCR in Nepal, the Human Rights Commission of Nepal (NHRC), OHCHR-Nepal and several other national bodies, including representatives from the National Women Commission (NWC) and the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP), formed a working group to establish national indicators. The Working Group chose to establish indicators for the rights to food, housing, health, education and work. Adapting the OHCHR indicators framework, the Working Group identified structural, process and outcome indicators for each of these rights. In regards to the right to work, for example, the Working Group identified the following attributes: access to decent and productive work; just and safe working conditions; training, skill upgrading and professional development; and protection from forced labor and unemployment. • Examples of structural indicators: Maximum number of working hours per week stipulated by law; minimum age of employment by occupation; duration of maternity, paternity and leave entitlements on medical grounds and proportion of wage paid in the coverage period. • Examples of process indicators: Proportion of wages between men and women (based on region and target groups); number or proportion of population attending skill development and vocational trainings; proportion of labor force with access to information related to employment. • Examples of outcome indicators: Proportion of unemployed in total population; long-term unemployment rates (one year or more) by sex, target groups and region; number of death incidents and serious injuries involving workers in foreign employment for which compensation was provided. 4.5.2. Factors to consider in selecting indicators and benchmarks Regardless of the indicators and benchmarks identified, there are a number of important factors to consider when evaluating which ones are most appropriate to use in a particular monitoring activity. First, in line with the principle of transparency, indicators should be clearly defined and true to the normative standard they seek to measure. For example, consider the indicator “number of luxury villas built”. Would this be an appropriate indicator to illustrate progress on the right to housing? That would depend on whether “luxury” is objectively defined and on what the indicator is being used to show. Clearly, an increase in the number of luxury villas will not help most people enjoy their right to adequate housing. However, alongside evidence of underinvestment in affordable housing, it may be a useful indicator to show that the Government is not taking adequate steps to fulfil the right to housing. Second, indicators should be capable of being measured. If it is not possible to source secondary data or collect primary data for the indicator, then the indicator will not be of much use. However, just because an indicator is hard to measure does not mean that it should not be used. Otherwise important issues will be overlooked. It is important to think creatively about how an indicator might be broken down into more measurable parts. For example, “level of corruption” is a very difficult indicator on which to collect data. However, the “percentage of the population that reported paying a bribe in the last month” may be possible to measure through perception surveys. Data for a particular indicator should ideally be gathered on a sufficiently frequent basis to show changes over the course of a particular policy cycle or during a particular administration’s term in office. 48