49th session of the UN Human Rights Council
Annual Debate on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
14 March 2022
Nordic-Baltic Intervention by H.E. Ambassador Darius Staniulis, Lithuania
Mr. President,
I have the honor to speak on behalf of the Nordic-Baltic countries.
We thank OHCHR for the report that gives a solid basis for our discussion.
Disability assessment tools should be fit for purpose to ensure access to services and facilitate concrete actions to advance policy implementation. No person should be overlooked while we speak about full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms included participation in political and social life.
It is our duty to uphold ethical principles and human rights-based approach to data collection and at the same time respect the right to information outlined in the Convention by, inter alia, ensuring dissemination of statistics in accessible format. Data collection should be managed in full compliance with the right to privacy and confidentiality and with respect to human rights.
We encourage governments to collect, analyse and provide disaggregated data by disabilities in collaboration with organizations representing persons with disabilities.
We would like to ask the panelists, how could we best ensure the participation of persons with disabilities in designing, implementing and monitoring of data-related policies?
Thank you.