Women in Development

Calls upon all Governments and all actors of society to implement the commitment made in Beijing to create an enabling environment through, 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 all Governments to ensure women's equal rights and access to economic resources, and to increase women's access to credit by instituting innovative lending practices, including practices that integrate credit with services and training for women, and that provide flexible credit facilities to women, in particular rural women, women in the informal sector, young women and women who lack access to traditional sources of collateral;

Urges Governments to develop and promote methodologies for incorporating a gender perspective into all aspects of policy-making, including economic policy-making;

Calls upon the United Nations system, in particular its funds and programmes and specialized agencies, and all other relevant organizations to promote an active and visible policy of mainstreaming gender perspective in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all policies and programmes;

Urges the international community, the United Nations system and other relevant organizations to give priority to assisting developing countries' efforts to ensure the full and effective participation of women in deciding and implementing development strategies, including through increased access to health care, capital, education, training and technology, as well as by women's wider participation in decision-making;

Urges multilateral donors, international financial institutions and regional development banks to review and implement policies in support of national efforts to ensure that a higher proportion of resources reach women, in particular in rural and remote areas;

Requests the United Nations development system to work towards establishing a more coherent approach to its support for women's income-generating activities, in particular credit schemes;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its fifty-second session a report on action taken to implement the present resolution.