So much is offered to us through indicators-stuffed networks that we live in constant awe for not being able to absorb it all –and much more so, not having the time for reflection (so as to use the same for effective human rights accountability purposes). (Albino Gomez)
1. The sayings
• ‘What gets measured, gets done’.
• ‘What is counted is the only thing that counts’.
• ‘Today’s investments in country health information systems will lead to a better tomorrow for billions of people’.
• ‘Accurate and timely health data are the foundation to improving public health’. (J.Y. Kim, M. Moellmann)
are terribly misleading and flawed.
2. More plausible would be statements like:
• ‘Without reliable information to set priorities and measure results, countries and their development partners are working in the dark’. (Margaret Chan)
• ‘Medical statistics shall be our standard of measurement: we will weigh life for life and see where the dead lie thicker, among the workers or among the privileged’. (Rudolf Virchow already in 1848)
3. Every piece of information to be collected presumes justifying its relevance on the basis of a value judgment and, not least, on the basis of its significance and potential actual use…but is this presumption true? Or are we rather building a big monument on shaky foundations (B. Elliot) in the name of an epidemic of ‘quantititis’? (Luis Weinstein)
Are we fixated with an exclusive focus on measurable targets?
4. Measuring everything has become the norm. Even academic work would seem to be appreciated as more relevant if it presents measurements. ‘The quantitative’ has great prestige. The dominant system ultimately measures things with a utilitarian purpose so as to determine the performance and efficiency in the production of goods and services. For our work in the social, environmental and human rights (HR) realm, measuring fulfills more important functions, namely to make visible inequalities and injustice. It is thus not healthy to consider measurements in an exclusionary way –no matter how useful they may be– basically because they tell us nothing about the singularities of countless individuals, families and communities whose rights are being violated; they tell us nothing about their faces, their names, their feelings and nothing about the dynamics of local ecosystems. Measurements give us a static image of a reality frozen in a photograph –a typical example being surveys or censuses; they can give us an idea of what is happening where and to whom, but they do not give us elements to understand the facts behind what is being reported-on. It is thus necessary to dare to dive into a more personalized contact with people aiming at understanding the dynamics of the life of those being reported-on. Recognizing, registering and interpreting qualitative data gives us a more cinematographic perception of reality. It is doing the latter that we can know and understand the how and the why of the facts that worry us as HR activists. (JulioMonsalvo)
5. The main worry here is that national statistics are self-described as a conservative-change-resistant bunch of tables and graphs moving from the margins to the center of national and international discourses –and not necessarily to rational (and fair) decision-making. (A.Atkisson)
6. The underlying question that lingers in my mind is:Should we not instead be setting annual benchmarks for processes that need to be set in motion and achieved –year in, year out– on the road to the progressive realization of each HR?
Ours is a cut-it-out or quick-fix-it society
7. Being really honest, as any global HR activist will tell you, data is susceptible to ‘data torture’ which, crudely put, is the idea that if you torture your numbers long enough, they will tell you whatever you want to hear.*
(L. McGoey)
*: National statistical agencies are pushed to come up with something and often manipulate data in their quest to sell a vision for others to provide aid (T. Buchholz) –no wonder many of us do not believe social and economic data too much, more so because they quite consistently leave out HR considerations.
8. It is actually not different with the technologies of public opinion manipulation and of repressive social controls that drown citizens’ autonomy and their HR. In this context, also, public relations are a euphemism for what actually is part of the propaganda machine. We are shamelessly influenced, our thinking shaped, our tastes prescribed, our ideas implanted, in great measure by invisible men or entities we have never even heard talk about. This is why we need to denounce and transform this ubiquitous social manipulation. Instead, social communication is to become a veritable tool of emancipation –thus the important role of the internet. (E. Bernays)
Yes, Yes
9. Yes, information is a currency of power. This is why new flows of the right information can indeed change the configuration of forces within a political system by giving new direction to disenfranchised constituencies. How important this is for HR! (PHM)
10. Yes, this is why we need to ensure the indicators selected are tied to the most transformative elements leading to the fulfillment of HR principles and standards, rather than falling back on existing, less ambitious indicators.** Here, we are thinking of the damaging tendency to ‘treasure what we can measure’ rather than the other way around. Now, more than ever, when choosing indicators, we must insist on their being relevant plus having a transformative and a HR potential impact rather than just focusing on their ease of application. (CESR, Kate Donald)
**: The indicators we are talking about are not just about any new data and measurements; they are to be indicators useful as tools for accountability purposes by society at large. Yes, so far, these are inexistent or weak for HR purposes, but activists are working on them; they will allow society to start by demandingtheir being widely collected and reported-onas a base for HR accountability. Resources allocation for their collection must be made available making sure the information gathered will be disaggregated to highlight the most urgent HR issues. (P. Okumu)
The weakness of the data we regularly collect is in what they miss
A culture of denial that suppresses our awareness when things go awry, especially in human rights matters, dooms a society.
11. Using data to seek proof is one thing. Seeking truth –a very much bigger mission– is something else. When faced with facts that discomfort us, we so often cope through denial –we do not see what we purport ‘cannot be seen’. Much of what lies ahead cannot be known for sure –the future is always dark territory, and it should be. To venture towards a better future we need to consider what the right actions and what the wrong ones are. True, what the most important spot-on actions are cannot necessarily be proven; data are of limited use in determining this. Our inquiry must thus include ethical issues and HR principles. In steering any course of action we need to agree where we intend to go, for what purpose(s) and how to get there. Science today is timid and hesitant faced with these larger questions –and businesses want to steer us in the direction of their narrower interests (so, alas, do many of the people we as citizens elect to purportedly serve the public interest –not forgetting the unelected officials who often have other axes to grind in their pursuit of greater power).(H. Einzig)
12. Bottom line, the HR-based framework recognizes that what we measure reflects what we care about, and recognizes that, if poorly chosen, indicators can and do create perverse incentives to collect data which distracts us from larger HR concerns –…and may even lead to human rights violations.
ClaudioSchuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
schuftan@gmail.com