Defending Dignity A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions on Monitoring Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Mother feeding her child, Gaza. Photo by Natalia Cieslik/World Bank, reproduced under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license. The assessment in step four of OPERA combines and cross-references quantitative data and qualitative information in three key areas – outcomes, policy efforts and resources – with broader contextual factors. By investigating an issue from a number of different dimensions, it is possible to illustrate the often opaque causal relationships between them. For example, let’s say we have data that shows that: • Severe, acute malnutrition is prevalent among children in pastoralist and semi-nomadic indigenous groups, much more so than any for other group, and • The Government’s food security initiatives are inaccessible to pastoralist and semi-nomadic indigenous groups, and • The social welfare ministry, itself underfunded, has not dedicated resources to scaling up its initiatives because pastoralist and semi-nomadic indigenous groups are not a priority group, despite their economic marginalization. If we were just monitoring malnutrition rates, or just monitoring service delivery, or just monitoring the allocation of resources, the interconnectedness of these issues – as well as the way they lead to patterns of discrimination, exclusion, impunity and powerlessness – would be hard to explain. However, by connecting – or “triangulating”, to use a social science term – findings on outcomes, policy efforts and resources, a much fuller picture should emerge about the reasonableness of the Government’s efforts to progressively realize ESCR and about the barriers that prevent commitments made on paper translating into practical action that has a meaningful impact on the ground. 138