A/HRC/31/31 persons in their respective cities. This information has allowed the cities to monitor the situation and adapt their housing and homelessness policies and programmes.4 5. Measuring and monitoring the state of economic, social and cultural rights in a country is a question of accountability of duty bearers towards rights holders. It is also a crucial element when considering the protection of those rights before the courts. 6. Human rights mechanisms have consistently reminded States that, in accordance with their treaty obligations, 5 they need to measure and provide reliable data and indicators. Human rights mechanisms, including the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and special procedure mandate holders regularly call upon States parties to adopt appropriate indicators and benchmarks as part of their national strategies and policies, including disaggregated statistics and time frames. As stated by the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, a fundamental requirement for identifying “appropriate steps” is to have a system in place to collect and analyse data on the actual status of realization of the right to food. Such data collection and analysis must be carried out periodically in order to continuously monitor progress made, or the lack thereof, with a view to adjusting ineffective policies and programmes (see A/HRC/25/57/Add.1, para. 8). 7. In some instances, development indicators are seen, incorrectly, as the equivalent of economic, social and cultural rights indicators. The two sets of indicators differ in crucial aspects. Firstly, human rights indicators are based on international legal standards and linked with a corresponding notion of accountability, a dimension lacking in development indicators. Secondly, cross-cutting human rights principles, such as non-discrimination, are usually absent from development indicators. Human rights indicators are designed to detect discrimination and inequalities in law and in practice; such detection is possible only if there is data disaggregated by gender, age, ethnicity, disability, migration status and other prohibited grounds of discrimination. Additionally, development indicators often look primarily at outcomes and place little emphasis on the process leading to these results. For example, outcome indicators may incidentally be positive because of a general improvement in the economic situation of the country and not necessarily owing to deliberate and targeted State actions. Outcome indicators can also show stagnation or regression in the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights as a result of a bad economic situation or factors outside a State’s control (such as externally imposed austerity measures) and not reflecting State efforts for the progressive realization of human rights. For States to assess progress in the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights for everyone on their territory or under their jurisdiction, their collection, analysis and dissemination of data must go beyond such economic data as gross domestic product. It needs to address such issues as educational achievement, access to justice, food security, freedom of expression, quality of health care and many others through practical, deliberate and targeted measures by the State. 8. A number of States are, however, adopting specific human rights measures in national policy frameworks. Since 2010, in Nepal, the National Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Prime Minister, the Council of Ministers, several ministries and civil society organizations have been developing a number of human rights indicators 4 5 4 See Vancouver’s Housing and Homelessness Strategy, 2012-2021 (http://vancouver.ca/peopleprograms/vancouvers-housing-strategy.aspx) and Edmonton’s 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness by 2019 (www.edmonton.ca/city_government/news/2014/edmontons-10-year-plan-to-end-homelessnessmakes-progress.aspx). Such as those included in article 16 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and general comment No. 3 (1990) on the nature of States parties’ obligations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.