Human Rights Education A Manual for National Human Rights Institutions 8.1. WHAT IS EVALUATION? Evaluation of human rights education is the deliberate and planned assessment of an activity.134 The main difference between monitoring and evaluation is timing and focus. Monitoring is ongoing during the implementation of the activity and focuses on progress toward meeting the outcomes. Evaluation occurs usually at the end of an activity and focuses on how well the related outcomes have been achieved. The evaluation will let the NHRI know: • what worked well, for whom and why • what didn’t work so well, for whom and why • what was learned that could be useful for future HRE work. Information gained from the evaluation: • enables the NHRI to report on what it has achieved, to tell the story of its effectiveness and impact • provides information about how to improve future activities • ensures accountability to funders, partners and other key stakeholders • provides information that may be useful for other NHRIs gender mainstreaming their organisations. It is important that evaluation is designed for each human rights education activity and is carried out during and at the end of the activity. Evaluation focuses on the effectiveness of the activity, as well as the performance of the educator or the NHRI involved in planning and implementing the activity. It is as relevant to a short presentation as it is to a longer project. There is no single format for effective evaluation. The art of evaluation is choosing a process that both gives the educator the information that is needed and, at the same time, is feasible for the educator, group or organization to carry out.135 8.2. CARRYING OUT EVALUATION Although there are many ways to evaluate human rights education, there is a process that many methods will follow. In their manual on evaluating human rights training activities, OHCHR and Equitas suggest five basic steps: understanding the change that is needed • describing the desired change • increasing the effectiveness of the activity; formative evaluation • assessing the change that has occurred; summative evaluation • communicating the results of the evaluation.136 The evaluation process is closely tied to the planning and design process. The Logic Model, outlined in Chapter 6, guides the planning of the evaluation process. The situation analysis provides information about the human rights situation and how it influences the design of the human rights education activity. The outcomes identify the expected results of the activity. The inputs (the resources) and the outputs (the type of human rights activity and participant group) describe how the outcomes will be achieved. When designing and implementing the evaluation, the human rights educator will need to decide the criteria and methods. 76 134 UN Women (2016) Evaluation. Available online at www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW08qXAZn-E (4.20). 135 Evaluating Human Rights Training Activities: A Handbook for Human Rights Educators; OHCHR; 2011; p. 33. 136 As above; pp. 34-35.