A/HRC/7/16 page 17 55. The Special Rapporteur has submitted to the attention of States and civil society two questionnaires: one on the elements of the right to adequate housing, the other on women and adequate housing.34 These questionnaires have been useful in obtaining information needed for the advancement of the conceptual understanding of the right to adequate housing and in implementing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur. They have also been widely used as tools to ascertain gaps in national legislation and the state of implementation of the right to adequate housing. B. Collaborative work 56. In the face of growing human rights challenges and the need to demonstrate the practical application of approach indivisibility of human rights, the Special Rapporteur has sought to collaborate closely with other mandate holders and treaty bodies on a wide range of economic, social and cultural as well as civil and political rights issues. These include food, health, education, internal displacement, racism and discrimination, indigenous peoples, minorities, toxic wastes, violence against women, human rights defenders, arbitrary detention, torture, summary executions and independence of lawyers and judges. In the course of this collaboration, the Special Rapporteur undertook joint missions and visits that were very useful in order to grasp the complexity of national and local situations and stress the need to address them in a holistic manner because of the close linkage between various human rights.35 57. Throughout his mandate, the Special Rapporteur has emphasized the need for cooperative work between special procedures and treaty bodies and has collaborated actively with these mechanisms, in particular with CESCR, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. This collaboration has comprised regular exchanges of information and ideas between the treaty bodies and the Special Rapporteur, work on general comments, participation at days of general discussion and the development of monitoring tools. 58. The Special Rapporteur believes that much more collaborative work is needed within the United Nations system to support the implementation of human rights and the right to adequate housing. There is room for a much closer and more coordinated collaboration between the special procedures mandate holders and the treaty bodies, United Nations agencies at the global and national levels and international financial institutions. This collaboration would result in better coordination and response to human rights issues, better follow-up on recommendations of these mechanisms and greater support for countries in their efforts to consider these recommendations. 59. There is a need for greater integration of the work of special procedures across the United Nations system. There is limited knowledge about the human rights aspects of housing and this needs to be addressed. Moreover, further mainstreaming of human rights in the United Nations system is required, as there is often reluctance by some agencies to incorporate 34 See footnote 22 above. 35 See for instance A/HRC/2/7 and A/HRC/7/16/Add.1.