Increasingly, human rights advocates are undertaking projects that require an understanding of large-scale social processes, such as mass killings and genocide, deportations and ethnic cleansing, and systematic detention and torture. Through the course of this work, analysts are learning an important lesson: The usual tools of human rights documentation are inadequate for comprehending such massive phenomena.

In order to document and understand the patterns immanent in large-scale violations, human rights groups need help to collect, manage, process and analyze very large amounts of information. Statistics created using rigorous methods in each of these stages can be defended on scientific grounds and can serve as a powerful tool in drawing attention to injustice. Inaccurate statistics can be easily attacked by critics and damage the credibility of human rights claims.

HRDAG offers expertise and tools for each of these stages of human rights data projects: collection, management, processing and analysis. HRDAG provides consulting in a variety of areas as well as standard and customized technical tools and services.

HRDAG provides consulting in the following areas:

• Methodology - HRDAG works with partner organizations to design sound methodologies to analyze the data which has been collected.
• Technology - HRDAG works with human rights data projects to identify technical needs - designing custom tools when necessary - in areas including networking, backups and security, building database and classification systems, and with advanced statistical analysis of human rights data. HRDAG deploys technical tools in the field and provides training and on-going support to staff.
• Training - HRDAG offers training in data collection, management and processing phases in areas such as statement taking, coding, data entry, inter-rater reliability, database maintenance, and building local capacity.
• Statistical Analysis - HRDAG offers unique applications of top-level statistical methods to human rights questions. Using statistical evidence, HRDAG can help partner organization identify pivotal questions revealed in the data they have collected.

Technical Services and Solutions

HRDAG offers a range of generalized and custom technical solutions and services:

• Analyzer. An integrated data processing environment used to collect and encode human rights information, and to enable reconciliation of records across multiple sources for use in statistical analysis.
• Custom Solutions. Applications designed specifically to help manage and integrate partner data collected prior to building a statistical database.
• On-site Expertise. HRDAG field consultants can work at the partner's office to provide ongoing information management and scientific assistance.
• Martus Client Software. A software application used in the field for secure filing and storing of reports on human rights abuse. Designed by Benetech in collaboration with HRDAG Director Dr. Patrick Ball, Martus is an extremely effective tool for use during the data collection and storage phase.

Potential partners for HRDAG services are large-scale human rights data projects and human rights organizations that, as part of their mission, have collected and/or analyzed massive amounts of human rights abuse data. To date, HRDAG has worked with truth commissions, international criminal tribunals, and non-governmental human rights organizations on five continents designing information management solutions. Learn more about our past and present projects

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The Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG) applies information technology solutions and statistical techniques to help human rights advocates build evidence-based arguments.