Secondly, performance and impact indicators can clarify planning processes and help set targets for future work. This can simplify the tasks of management and assist staff to understand what is expected of them. Over the course of a strategic plan, NHRIs should plan to evaluate different benchmarks at regular intervals. This will help them to re-focus their activities in line with their priorities and their successes or failures. Third, performance and impact indicators are easily understandable and can be readily communicated to the public. As a result, they can help NHRIs to communicate their objectives and achievements. Finally, indicators developed through a participatory process that involves ­beneficiaries and organisations with which they co-operate will strengthen ­consultation and collaboration with all stakeholders and help NHRIs to ­become more responsive to the needs of those it serves. Use of participatory ­indicators is also likely to help NHRIs to identify realistic targets that reflect public ­expectations of the institution. In conclusion Neither benchmarks nor indicators should be given too much importance. They are essentially a tool to help national institutions plan and evaluate their work, not an end in themselves. The examples discussed in this report should be understood in these terms. They are a starting point and NHRIs should adapt and use them based on their judgement of what they need for the particular context in which they work. Among the characteristics of effective national human rights institutions, public accountability was identified as an especially important element. One of the most important uses of well-formulated benchmarks and indicators is that they allow the public to form a clear view of the institution’s work and to decide whether it is adequately fulfilling its mandate, and reaching its overall goal: to protect and promote human rights. 42 Assessing the Effectiveness of National Human Rights Institutions