A/HRC/7/16 page 16 51. As noted in a study that identifies the requirements of groups in need of special attention in South Africa, “special needs” housing can take the form of emergency shelters (short-term accommodation); shelters (medium-term accommodation); second stage housing (short-term rental accommodation); community care homes; home based care; and individual housing (ownership).33 IV. ACTIVITIES OF THE MANDATE A. Tools for the realization of the right to adequate housing 52. Since the beginning of his mandate, the Special Rapporteur has stressed the importance, as have numerous treaty bodies, of reliable and clear statistics and indicators to assess the progress made by States towards the realization of the right to adequate housing. Unfortunately, as has been evident during his country missions, many States do not incorporate the human rights perspective in statistical data. In some cases, even basic indicators, such as the number of homeless people, are unavailable, let alone data at a disaggregated level. 53. In the context of its work for the international human rights treaty bodies, OHCHR organized subregional workshops and consultations at country level in 2007 for piloting the conceptual and methodological framework on statistical information and other appropriate indicators to promote and assess the implementation of human rights, including the right to adequate housing. Participants were experts from national statistical agencies, policymakers, national human rights institutions and civil society organizations. An expert consultation organized by OHCHR in December 2006 for its work for the treaty bodies, which involved the Special Rapporteur and experts from UN-Habitat, identified a preliminary set of statistics on the right to adequate housing. 54. As a follow-up, work was initiated on the compilation of metadata on each indicator, whether structural, process or outcome indicators. Such information, which is to be reflected in “metasheets”, aims at supporting the use of relevant statistics and providing detailed information on their definition, rationale, method of computation, primary and secondary data sources, level of disaggregation, periodicity and any other relevant comments and limitations. The elaboration of such metadata draws essentially on existing sources, including databases of United Nations agencies and examples of standardized information collected by civil society organizations. The development of metasheets benefited from workshops and consultations organized at country level. The Special Rapporteur would like to reiterate his support to this piloting and sensitization process supporting the development of contextually relevant and viable statistical information on the implementation of the right to adequate housing at country level. The Special Rapporteur would also like to express his appreciation to the national human rights institutions of India and Uganda which took an active part in the organization of two subregional workshops. The Special Rapporteur calls on States to organize follow-up initiatives at country level and recommends further collaboration with OHCHR and UN-Habitat on indicators on adequate housing. 33 See Lilian Chenwi, “Giving effect to the right to adequate housing”, ESR Review, vol. 7, No. 4, (December 2006), p. 10.