Women in development

Calls for the urgent implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action and the relevant provisions contained in the outcomes of all other major UN conferences and summits; reiterates its call to all Governments and all actors of society to implement the commitment made at Beijing to create an enabling environment by, inter alia, removing discriminatory barriers and ensuring the full and equal participation of women in economic activities through, inter alia, the adoption of gender-sensitive policies and legal measures and the provision of other necessary structures; urges Governments to develop and promote methodologies for mainstreaming a gender perspective into all aspects of policy-making; urges all Governments to ensure women's equal rights with men and access to economic resources and to increase the access of women to credit by instituting innovative lending practices; invites Governments to enact legislation to ensure that women have equal access to and control over land, unmediated by male relatives, in order to end land rights discrimination; requests Governments to ensure that the priorities of women are included in, and that women fully participate in, decisions on public investment programmes for economic infrastructure, technology, water supply and sanitation, electrification and energy conservation, transport and road construction; urges Governments to promote and strengthen microenterprises to provide outreach programmes to inform low-income and poor women, particularly in rural and remote areas, of opportunities for market and technology access and to provide women with assistance in taking advantage of such opportunities; calls upon Governments to promote, inter alia, through legislation, family-friendly and gender-sensitive work environments and also to promote the facilitation of breastfeeding for working mothers.

Adopted without vote, 77th meeting

4 p.

Adopted at the 77th plenary meeting, 18 Dec. 1997.