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Hello Thalia,
The new decade of 2020 kicked off for me at a family reunion where dozens of my closest relatives, aged from 2 years to 77, gathered for four days at a camping ground near the top of New Zealand’s South Island, Te Wai Pounamu. We do this every two years, sharing lots of good food, having fun, and making new memories. The connections between cousins and second cousins, and across the generations get stronger every time. But I don’t want to gloss over the hard parts. Like every family and community everywhere, getting along doesn’t always happen seamlessly. There are tensions to resolve and (usually unintended) hurts to be acknowledged. There was also that eerie glow in the sky from the Australian bush fires that reminded us that we need to be kind not only with one another, but also with our planet. Human rights and the climate crisis are closely linked.
A huge amount of work goes into it, and so it was a thrill for us to get our third HRMI expert survey out into the field a couple of weeks ago. We’re running the survey in all the same countries as last year plus a whole group of new countries and territories across the Pacific. The number of languages the survey can be completed in has also gone up to nine! For the countries in our Pacific expansion we even have our first ever pilot question about the impact of the climate crisis on human rights.
The nerds among us are also very happy to report that the first peer-reviewed journal article on HRMI has been published :-) See more on this and other things in the newsletter below, put together by our communications lead Thalia.
Be kind, and have a wonderful day
Anne-Marie
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The 2020 HRMI Human Rights Survey is live!
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Our annual human rights expert survey goes out around the world in February each year - and it's out now!
Around a thousand human rights professionals have now received links to our anonymous online survey on their country, and we've already received 20% of them back, completed - this is excellent!
Please check your email if you are expecting to participate (the email from us might go to your junk or spam folder). It will come from annemarie@humanrightsmeasurement.org, so you could add that to your safe senders list. If you'd like to participate but haven't been invited to yet, please get in touch with Catherine: catherine.chong@motu.org.nz
We're particularly in need of more human rights professionals to participate for the United States, Jordan, and several Pacific countries and territories. Please get in touch with Catherine if you have colleagues who may be interested. |
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The HRMI team at UGA
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Photograph: The Human Rights Lab at UGA
HRMI is a global collaboration, and one of our main bases of operations is the GLOBIS Center at the University of Georgia (UGA), where HRMI co-founder Chad Clay is the Director.
Chad has a team of colleagues and students at the School of Politics and International Relations who are part of HRMI, including Amanda Murdie, Danny Hill, Matthew Rains, Morgan Barney, and Meridith Lavelle.
An exciting new development in 2020 is the establishment of the UGA Human Rights Lab, where high-achieving students work on real-life human rights projects, including using HRMI data, for a semester, under the guidance of Chad and the UGA HRMI team.
You can read team bios on our website, and stay tuned for more news from the lab. |
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We are looking for a new Pacific Metrics Lead
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You may remember that one of the significant developments of 2019 was our expansion into the Pacific region, pioneered with 43 co-design workshop participants.
One of the outcomes was the very fast creation of a 'Pacific Module' - a set of questions generated by workshop participants on issues of particular interest to Pacific communities, such as:
- the effect of the climate crisis on human rights
- indigenous rights
- cultural rights
- violence against vulnerable communities.
These questions are only asked of respondents in Pacific countries, and will generate a new set of data for us to analyse and publish.
We are now looking for a new Pacific Metrics Lead to collaborate with us on taking this work forward. We would love to hear your recommendations for Pacific academics who may be interested in leading data work in the region. Please see more information on our website, and reply to us with your ideas. |
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New on the website: HRMI data in action
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Have you seen these recent articles on our website? They all show HRMI data being used to illuminate current human rights situations around the world.
We were also delighted to see the New Zealand Chief Human Rights Commissioner, Paul Hunt, using HRMI data to argue the case for international scrutiny of New Zealand's human rights situation. In a high profile op-ed, Paul writes:
'In comparison to many other countries, we have a good overall human rights record. But if you look at some specific human rights, our performance is disappointing.
Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI), the ground-breaking international human rights project based in Wellington, uses data to track and compare countries’ human rights performances. In relation to the right to adequate housing, the HRMI places New Zealand 34 out of 48 high-income countries, behind Malta and South Korea. In relation to the right to education, HRMI places us 12 out of 40 high-income countries, behind Poland and Singapore. These scores are based on national averages, so they do not capture the much worse situation of groups such as Māori, disabled people, Pacific people, women and the rainbow community.'
Also, late last year, CIVICUS researcher Josef Benedict used HRMI data in a DevPolicy article about Fiji, which you can read on their website.
If you have an idea for a future article - either for our website, or for another publication - please get in touch with our Communications Lead, Thalia: thalia.kehoerowden@motu.org.nz. |
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HRMI data and the UN Sustainable Development Goals
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The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have received a boost recently through the launch of the Decade of Action, leading up to the 2030 deadline for achieving these important goals, like eliminating hunger around the world.
HRMI's economic and social rights scores, which are based on the award-winning SERF Index methodology, have a lot to contribute to the SDGs. In 2020 we are stepping up our efforts to help people working on the SDGs make fresh progress by using our data.
If you know anyone working on the SDGs, please point them to our new guide: 10 reasons our economic and social rights data are uniquely useful for improving people's lives, and feel free to introduce them to our team personally. |
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A new journal article on HRMI
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In January the first peer-reviewed journal article about HRMI was published in the Journal of Human Rights.
'Human rights data for everyone: Introducing the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI)', by our three HRMI co-founders, Anne-Marie Brook, Chad Clay, and Susan Randolph, is available online for subscribers at Taylor and Francis Online, and as a free PDF download on our website.
The full citation is:
'Human rights data for everyone: Introducing the Human Rights Measurement Initiative (HRMI)' Anne-Marie Brook, K Chad Clay, and Susan Randolph, in Journal of Human Rights, Volume 19, No 3 (2020), pp 67-82.
A more technical article about our methodology for measuring civil and political rights is currently under review for publication in the Journal of Peace Research. |
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Pass it on!
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Do you know someone working in human rights, advocacy, media, or government who could get good use out of our data? Please tell them about us!
If there's anything we can do to help you spread the word, please get in touch with our communications lead, Thalia, on thalia.kehoerowden@motu.org.nz |
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Human Rights Measurement Initiative
Motu Economic and Public Policy Research
Level 1, 97 Cuba St
PO Box 24390
Wellington
New Zealand
Website: Click here
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