V. >> F ramework in Practice - Implementing and Monitoring Rights >> Using indicators for human rights Box 30 Indicators and national human rights action plan - Nepal Nepal was among the first to use and adapt the OHCHR framework for identifying indicators to monitor the implementation of human rights. Following a few awareness and capacity-building workshops spread over 2008 and 2009 for officials from the National Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Prime Minister and the Council of Ministers (OPMCM), several ministries and civil society, OHCHR-Nepal in collaboration with OPMCM developed a project with two parallel objectives. The first was to support the work to identify indicators for use in the third National Human Rights Action Plan of Nepal (NHRAP). This work was coordinated by OPMCM, which worked closely with human rights focal points in different ministries. The second was to support the work of five working groups constituted to identify and put into context indicators for promoting and monitoring the implementation of economic, social and cultural rights in Nepal. These working groups were constituted at the initiative of OHCHR-Nepal with a coordinator (either from civil society or the government agency best placed to take the lead) and five or six members, including some human rights activists who were working on a specific right or human rights issue relevant to the country. Working groups were constituted to work on indicators for the right to health, the right to education, the right to food, the right to work and the right to housing. One was led by a civil society organization, one by an official from the National Human Rights Commission, one by the Secretary of the National Women Commission and the remaining two by ministry officials. The focus of the work of OPMCM was more on identifying human rights programming indicators (mostly process and structural indicators) for the different programmes identified in the draft NHRAP. In the course of selecting these indicators and in view of the overlap between some issues in the NHRAP and the country’s Three-Year Interim Development Plan, the two plans and the underlying strategies were shown to be organically linked and meaningful for realizing their stated objectives. The focus of the working groups was to create a body of context-relevant work, based on the OHCHR tables of illustrative indicators, to help civil society and others like the National Human Rights Commission or the National Women Commission in their human rights advocacy and monitoring activities. In 2011, this initiative produced a manual for national stakeholders, including a list of validated indicators, for strengthening the monitoring of the realization of economic and social rights as well as development planning processes in Nepal. Sources: Indicators for Monitoring Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in Nepal: A User’s Guide (Kathmandu, 2011). Available from http://nepal.ohchr.org. Human Rights Indicators 117