2026 regional human rights index
Introduction
REGIONAL — Field data auditing educational safety, funding transparency and legislative progress across the countries we work in. What began as a local difficulty is now a structural one, and it shapes daily life for every household here. This brief sets out the evidence, the cost of inaction, and what should follow.
The problem, before the work started
Rights reporting arrives late, in aggregate, and too general to act on. Households absorbed the difference themselves — in time, in money, and in risks they would not otherwise take. Those costs rarely appear in a budget line, but they decide whether a family recovers or slips further.
An index nobody can check is an opinion. We publish the method so the number can be argued with.
Dr Leila Mansour, research lead
How the work was delivered
The index is built from verified case data, published by district and repeated annually. The approach was chosen because it survives the conditions here: staff turnover, seasonal access, and a population that may move at short notice.
- Cases verified against at least two independent sources
- Published by district so local actors can use it
- Methodology published in full alongside the figures
- The same method repeated each year for comparability
What changed beyond the immediate goal
The direct objective was met, but the effects that matter most were the ones we did not set out to produce.
1. Local advocacy
District figures gave community organisations something specific to raise.
2. Comparable years
An unchanged method made the second edition genuinely informative.
3. Contested and improved
Two disputed districts were re-verified and corrected in the published errata.
What comes next
The next edition adds detention data and opens the case-verification protocol to partner review. The measure of success is not how long we stay, but whether the work continues once we have gone.
