EU-OHCHR Bridging the Gap I meets to discuss the first draft on human rights indicators

The component I of the European project Bridging the Gap (BtG-I), led by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), organized on the 19th and 20th of April in Geneva (Switzerland) the workshop “Human Rights indicators for the CRPD in support of a disability-inclusive 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” to discuss the first draft on human rights indicators.

The two-day meeting was inaugurated by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Catalina Devandas, who highlighted how the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) should mutually reinforce each other.

After a brief introduction by Victoria Lee (BtG-I coordinator) of the meeting’s objectives and an overview of the progresses made by BtG-I in analyzing the different components of the CRPD, of the Bridging the Gap’s component I by Victoria Lee, the project director of Bridging the Gap’s component II, Federico Martire, took the floor. During his speech, Federico Martire presented the latest updates on the project as well as the synergies among the two components, notably in terms of country data collection and contribution to BtG-II’s Process Assessment Matrix.

Human rights indicators for the CRPD are essential for the standardization of the human rights-based approach, especially in analysing the “structural” component and to establish cross-country comparable and widely accepted tools and data. Indicators are indeed, an objective way to identify and tackle policy shortcomings and highlight room for improvement and good practices to be replicated at country and international cooperation level.

The workshop proceeded with a review of OHCHR methodology in respect of human right indicators and, afterward, it started the presentation & discussion of indicators relating to specific articles of the Convention, namely arti0cles 27 (work & employment), 28 (adequate standard of living & social protection), 24 (education), 25 (health), 11 (situations of risk and humanitarian emergencies), and 6 (women and girls with disabilities). Every article’s indicator set has been designed to respect the consolidated approach to human rights indicators, i.e. separating between structural, process and outcome.

Based on the results of the workshop – which counted on the contributions of UN experts, external consultants and national institution representatives from Nepal, Jordan, Ethiopia, Paraguay and Moldova – BtG-I will proceed with an update of the indicator sets and will move along the 2nd batch of CRPD indicators. Policy guidelines, training for trainers and online learning tools will be also envisaged at a later stage.