The subject of your work here, “Statistics, Development and Human Rights”, is nothing less than a quest for a science of human dignity. This is a vital endeavour. When the target is human suffering, and the cause human rights, mere rhetoric is not adequate to the task at hand. What are needed are solid methodologies, careful techniques, and effective mechanisms to get the job done.  Mary Robinson1 In recent years, there has been a growing demand from various stakeholders, including national and international human rights activists and policymakers, for indicators for use in human rights assessments and in furthering the implementation and realization of human rights. This publication attempts to meet some of this demand by developing a reference resource with operational tools, including an approach to identifying quantitative and qualitative indicators, and the corresponding methodology, to promote objective and comprehensive human rights assessments. On a general level, the idea of measuring human rights is inspired by the thinking, once well summed up by the eminent development thinker and practitioner J.K. Galbraith, that “if it is not counted, it tends not to be noticed.” On another level and in a different context, one could go further and suggest “what gets measured gets done.”2 At the heart of this thinking is the recognition that to manage a process of change directed at meeting certain socially desirable objectives, there is a need to articulate targets consistent with those objectives, mobilize the required means, as well as identify policy instruments and mechanisms that translate those means into desired outcomes. In other words, there is a need for suitable information, for example in the form of statistics, indicators or even indices, in order to undertake a situational analysis, inform public policy, monitor progress, and measure performance and overall outcomes. The use of indicators can help us make our communications more concrete and effective. Compiling indicators helps to record information efficiently and this, in turn, makes it easier to monitor and follow up issues and outcomes. Well-articulated indicators can improve public understanding of the constraints and policy trade-offs, and help in creating broader consensus on social priorities. More importantly, when used properly, information and statistics can be powerful tools for creating a culture of accountability and transparency in the pursuit of socially valued progress. In all these applications, it is necessary to configure and adapt the indicators to the requirements of the specific objectives that they are expected to serve so as to exploit their inherent promise. To get the most out of an indicator, it must be conceptually sound and empirically validated, based on sound methodology for collecting and processing information, and be relevant to the context where it is being used. 1. United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (1997–2002) in her address at the Conference of the International Association for Official Statistics on “Statistics, Development and Human Rights”, Montreux, Switzerland, September 2000. 2. Douglas Daft, Chief Executive Officer of Coca-Cola, as reported in United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2000: Human Rights and Human Development (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 126. Human Rights Indicators 1