Background

Twice a year, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of person with disabilities issues calls for inputs to inform his thematic studies to be presented to the Human Rights the General Assembly.

Objectives

Pursuant to Human Rights Council Resolution 44/10, the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities has begun the preparation of his thematic report to the 52^nd session of the Human Rights Council which will be presented in Geneva, Switzerland, and will look at innovation around the world in the design and delivery of services that underpin the right to live independently and be included in the community.

The UN CRPD points to a radically different use of social support to promote personal autonomy and community inclusion. It calls for a personalization of those services. It calls for re-building services on the basis of voice, choice and control. It calls for those services to be built in a way that is visibly connected with broader policy goals of community inclusion dealing, for example, with housing, employment, transport and other generally available public services.

This overall set of policy goals is important in itself. An added impetus for change arises due to the exigencies of the post pandemic period. COVID-19 revealed the extent to which traditional service paradigms lack resilience in times of crisis. This means the imperative to re-invent the service paradigm is driven both by the UN CRPD in combination with the observation that the traditional approach to services is no longer fit for purpose in the 21^st century. The added new technology as well as more sophisticated financial instruments means that States increasingly have the means to re-imagine and re-invent services. Expanding the imagination of policymakers to encompass this is the main goal.

This ‘call for inputs’ seeks to gather together the new thinking and innovation that is already happening around the world on re-imagining the service paradigm. From this, it is hoped to detect trends, to identify critical success factors for change and to make useful recommendations on how to carry the process forward.

Key questions and types of input/comments sought:

• Download the questionnaire (PDF):
  English

How inputs will be used

The Special Rapporteur would be grateful to receive any relevant information for the preparation of this study at: hrc-sr-disability@un.org.