Key indicators If you have a number of indicators, selecting key indicators can be helpful. • Key indicators: those indicators that are particularly important and can be tracked more frequently. For example, in the family violence example in Table 4, you may determine that a key indicator is “proportion of women aged 15-49 who report having experienced physical violence from an intimate partner,’ and that you will track it more regularly. Baselines Once you have identified your indicators, you are able to set your baselines. Baselines are the starting point before an activity happens: the current situation. They will be used as a comparison during and at the end of the activity. Creating a solid pre-activity baseline against which progress can be measured is key to demonstrating change. • Baseline: a starting point before an activity happens, which is used as a comparison following the activity. It allows you to measure what has changed. Baselines should ideally be defined in cooperation with local partners. It may also be possible to use data from existing local or national surveys and assessments to populate the baseline. Continuing with the previous example of the long-term outcome ‘Family violence is reduced’, one indicator identified was ‘Proportion of women aged 15-49 who report having experienced physical violence from an intimate partner.’ One publicly available source could be your country’s Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) or national statistical bureau, which may include data on family violence. ‘Family violence is reduced’ is a longterm outcome and will be measured over e.g. five years. You can consider looking at two different DHS to see how family violence rates have changed over a five-year period. See also Table 5 ‘Baseline example.’ Table 5: Baseline example Long-term outcome(s) Family violence is reduced. Indicator(s) Baseline(s) Data source Proportion of women aged 15-49 who report having experienced physical violence from an intimate partner. 30% Demographic and Health Survey. If only one data point exists (e.g. only one Demographic and Health Survey may have been carried out in your country), find a better, more measurable indicator.13 Targets Targets describe where you want to get to. They are the value of an indicator that you expect to achieve by a specific point in time. • Target: The value of an indicator expected to be achieved by a specific point in time. Continuing with the previous example, for indicator “Proportion of women aged 15-49 who report having experienced physical violence from an intimate partner,” where your baseline is 30 percent, your target may be 25 percent by 2025. Targets should be realistic; if not, you are setting yourself/your team up for failure. Discuss what target is realistic within the timeframe with local partners, NHRI staff and other relevant stakeholders and aim for that. 41