82 HANDBOOK FOR NHRIs ON WOMEN’S RIGHTS AND GENDER EQUALITY 7.8 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT Knowledge management describes the strategies and practices used to identify, create, disseminate, enable and evaluate an organization’s insights, experiences and learning. For NHRIs, knowledge management extends to case processing, development of information systems, archival and documentation practices, and research programmes and publications. The promotion and protection of women’s rights and gender equality present unique challenges to NHRIs. Because women continue to suffer the effects of deep-rooted societal and systemic inequality, it is difficult to single out causes without losing sight of the full picture of the problem. It is also a challenge to measure progress based on individual benchmarks. Knowledge management is one key element to successful assessment and performance in the field of women’s rights and gender equality. Knowledge management can further assist NHRIs to: • Determine whether operational priorities are supported by national data on the status of women’s rights and gender equality; • Link planning and priorities to evidence; • Use case-management data to inform research, planning and academic work on human rights; • Evaluate organizational and programmatic performance across all areas of activity; and • Contribute quantitative and qualitative information about progress on implementation of human rights commitments and development targets, including the Millennium Development Goals. Although there is a wide variety of knowledge-management activities undertaken by NHRIs’ work on women’s rights and gender equality, the focus of this Handbook is on research and publications, as well as the use of sex-disaggregated data. This methodological decision was made on the basis of the type of knowledge-management activities implemented by most NHRIs surveyed.