Dear friend of HRMI,

… and just like that we are at the start of another year! I've come back from a lovely (southern hemisphere) summer holiday recharged and excited about 2023.

Looking back, 2022 was all about solidifying our foundations as an organisation: we demerged from our host institution which meant establishing our own Governance Board and finance and risk monitoring functions for the first time, AND we embarked on a very significant plan to develop a human rights data subscription service for the global investment community. You can read more about this below. We particularly encourage you to engage with the article linked here - which summarises our thoughts about the benefits and risks of this new workstream.

Looking ahead, 2023 will be about growing our funding and our impact, as we encourage governments the world over to treat their people as well as they possibly can. The potential for this is huge, and we are keen to develop new partnerships and collaborations - so if you have ideas for how we can work together please reply to this email and let's talk!

Yours, looking forward to an impactful year,

Anne-Marie Brook

2023 survey

Are you one of our registered survey respondents? In February of 2023, our expert survey will be sent out to human rights experts on the ground. Keep an eye out for survey@humanrightsmeasurement.org in your inbox, and whitelist this address to make sure you receive the link. If you’d like to participate, please reach out to us at the survey email listed above.

This year, we are excited to be adding the following countries to our survey: Bangladesh, Thailand, and the Maldives - so please share this email with your colleagues in those countries.

Additionally, we are running a pilot to measure Freedom of Religion and Belief in 9 countries, including Bangladesh, China, Hong Kong, India, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. We're looking forward to seeing the results, which we'll publish in June 2023.

Rights Tracker: Investor

Engaging the private sector in improving human rights

We have been working hard to figure out how we can leverage the private sector’s enormous influence on country-level human rights.

Following two co-design workshops last year, and many discussions and brainstorming sessions, we have developed a beta-version of a new product which we are calling Rights Tracker: Investor (RTI). Here is an introduction to the product.

Thank you to everyone who has been willing to share their time and expertise to help us get here.

In this FAQ article, we answer common questions from the human rights community about RTI and invite feedback. We’d love to hear your thoughts! You can reply to this email or email anne-marie.brook@hrmi.ngo.

Pacific region data

Did you miss our Pacific data launch in September?

Head to the Rights Tracker and select the 'Pacific region data' (see image) for any country in the Blue Pacific to see the 2022 data.

The Pacific region data focuses on five themes identified by local stakeholders as most significant in the region. They include the climate crisis, Indigenous sovereignty, Indigenous lands, cultural rights, and violence in the community.

For a quick recap of the 2022 findings, check out this video:

How well are human rights respected in the Pacific? 2022 Data Findings

Growing the team

We are excited to welcome new members to the HRMI team.

Following her previous incredible work raising awareness of HRMI’s work in Samoa and coordinating the internship programme collaboration with the University of the South Pacific, Galumalemana Ronna Lee has now taken on the role of Pacific region co-Lead.

Joining Ronna as Pacific co-Lead is Abdul Shaheed. Abdul has been working tirelessly to advocate for the rights of marginalised communities in Fiji, and has been involved with HRMI for some time.

We’d like to acknowledge the tremendous work that our previous Pacific co-Leads Seuta’afili Patrick Thomsen and Sam Manuela have done. Their leadership has had a deep impact on HRMI’s Pacific expansion, and we are thrilled this work is passing into the hands of local experts in the region.

James Ibell-Roberts has joined HRMI as Strategy and Development Advisor, working closely with the Executive Director to develop new partnerships and support our growth.

Ju Kim is assisting the Wellington team as our Motu-funded intern while completing her degree in law and Māori studies.

People in East and South East Asia will be excited to hear that we have hired a regional Engagement Lead to expand our reach in the region.

Measuring human rights: a new series in The Loop

A series of articles about human rights measurement was published starting in August 2022 in the ECPR’s Political Science Blog The Loop, curated by HRMI's Brazil based editor and researcher Eduardo Burkle. Six of the articles focus on HRMI data. You can read them here:

HRMI data have also been cited in a variety of news outlets including:

You can see all articles where HRMI data are mentioned here.

USP Samoa HRMI Event

On October 6th, human rights advocates, students, and government stakeholders came together for a presentation from HRMI’s seven wonderful interns at the University of the South Pacific campus in Samoa.

This event was organised by the team of interns: Otto Rheeney, Jennifer Saloga Apelu Alisi, Faye Sinei Fili, Faasisila Titimaea, Anastasia Toleafa, Faith Tafu Westerlund, Fa’atauvaa Tavita, and USP’s internship coordinator and mentor Galumalemana Ronna Lee.

The event was a success, with a wonderful presentation on behalf of the team and a lively discussion between participants afterwards. Well done!

Change of email address

(reminder)

We changed our email addresses in August last year.

As you can see, this email is sent to you from anne-marie.brook@hrmi.ngo.

Since HRMI registered as an independent charitable trust in August 2022, staff email addresses have changed from @motu.org.nz to @hrmi.ngo

Make sure you add us to your whitelist to receive all HRMI communications.

Please keep in touch!

Thanks for your interest in HRMI. You are also most welcome to follow us on Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Facebook to keep up to date in between newsletters.

Please also feel free to contact us directly with feedback, ideas, and requests. We're here to help.

Support us

HRMI is doing incredible work on very limited resources, and we are delighted to see the global coverage, recognition, and use that our data are getting. To achieve the exponential impact we are looking to have, we need to expand our data to achieve global coverage as soon as possible. We need to quadruple our income over the next five years in order to do this. If you can help with suggestions of potential funders, or by making a small regular donation to HRMI yourself, please get in touch by replying to this email, or visit our donations page.