A/HRC/45/14/Add.1 encourages the Government to ensure that its commendable commitment to the promotion and protection of the rights and dignity of all older persons translates into effective implementation. 68. The Independent Expert further notes that one of the main challenges is to maintain and improve the well-being of older persons in all regions, while reducing inequalities and ensuring a fair distribution of resources within and between generations. This will be vital for fostering empathic intergenerational relations for the benefit of societal cohesion. 69. Moreover, the Independent Expert welcomes the dedicated institutional structures and mechanisms, such as the Chinese National Committee on Ageing and the National Bureau of Ageing. These coordination and governance structures are prerequisites to ensuring that an older person-centred approach guides all activities. She also stresses the importance of an independent, interdepartmental coordination mechanism to facilitate the implementation of a coherent policy plan, ensuring a multidisciplinary approach to ageing. 70. The Independent Expert encourages China to ratify all human rights treaties to which it is not yet party, notably the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. She further recommends that the Government establish an independent national human rights institution with a broad mandate to promote and protect human rights, including those of older persons, in line with the Paris Principles, and to afford it with adequate financial and human resources. 71. The Independent Expert appreciates her visit and the dialogue with the Government, noting that it constituted an opportunity to emphasize that any normative or policy action with regard to older persons must be underpinned by an approach based on all human rights. Such an approach places individuals and their rights at the centre. The existing international human rights framework, including the United Nations Principles for Older Persons and the main human rights instruments, should guide the Government’s efforts in this regard. 72. On the basis of these overall conclusions and the observations contained in the present report, the Independent Expert makes the following recommendations with regard to specific areas and actors. B. Recommendations to the Government 1. Study, data and statistics 73. The Independent Expert stresses that the availability of data and analysis is a requirement for efficient policy design. As mechanisms are already in place with regard to data collection, she notes that China, with its diverse regional circumstances, would have much to gain in adopting a framework that provides a functional set of metrics that could be applied to policy and practice relating to ageing.84 This would make it possible to monitor and evaluate the impact of initiatives, to detect potential gaps and to improve the response. Such a framework could also serve to identify trends and challenges in order to enable a better understanding of the implications of an ageing population as an essential foundation for policy development. 74. The Independent Expert encourages the Government to ensure the nationwide, systematic and regular collection of data disaggregated by age and gender in order to reflect the extreme heterogeneity of that particular group of persons. 85 A baseline study on the human rights of older persons in China should include data on impediments to the actual exercise of rights by older persons, such as all forms of 84 85 See OHCHR, “A human rights-based approach to data: leaving no one behind in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, guidance note to data collection and disaggregation, 2018. Ibid. 15