Follow-Up to the 4th World Conference on Women and Full Implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 104 Implementation of the outcome of the 4th World Conference on Women, published in 1997.

What subjects does this mandate have?

14 subjects

Africa Conferences Coordination Within UN System Declarations Equal Opportunity Equality Inter-Agency Cooperation Poverty Mitigation Programme Implementation Programmes of Action Sustainable Development Women in Development Women's Advancement Women's Status

What’s in this document?

54 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women;⁹

⁹A/51/322.

Takes note of initiatives and actions taken by Governments and the international community towards the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action adopted by the Conference;

Calls once again upon States, the United Nations system and all other actors to implement the Platform for Action, in particular by promoting an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective at all levels, including in the design, monitoring and evaluation of all policies, as appropriate, in order to ensure effective implementation of the Platform;

Welcomes the contribution of the report of the Secretary-General in translating the concept of mainstreaming into practical action, including the ongoing work to develop methodologies to facilitate the application of a gender perspective into all policies and programmes throughout the United Nations system;

Calls for intensified efforts at the international level to integrate the equal status and all human rights of women into the mainstream of United Nations system-wide activity and to address these issues regularly and systematically throughout the relevant United Nations bodies and mechanisms;

Stresses that Governments have the primary responsibility for implementing the Platform for Action, and reaffirms that Governments should continue to commit themselves at the highest political level to its implementation and should take a leading role in coordinating, monitoring and assessing progress in the advancement of women;

Calls upon States, with the assistance of non-governmental organizations, to continue to disseminate widely the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action;

Welcomes the progress made by Governments thus far towards meeting the commitment to developing, by 1996, comprehensive implementation strategies or plans of action, including time-bound targets and benchmarks for monitoring, and urges all Governments that have not yet done so to undertake efforts in this regard, in order to implement fully the Platform for Action;

Also welcomes the contribution made to the elaboration of guidelines for national strategies or plans of action by regional and subregional conferences on the implementation of the Platform for Action, such as the Outline of a Model National Action Plan by the Subregional Conference of Senior Governmental Experts held at Bucharest from 12 to 14 September 1996,¹⁰which may assist other Governments, too, in meeting this commitment, and in this respect encourages the support of, inter alia, the Division for the Advancement of Women of the Secretariat;

¹⁰See SRC/CEE/REP.1.

Urges Governments that have not yet done so to establish or strengthen appropriate national machineries for the advancement of women at the highest political level, appropriate intra- and interministerial procedures and staffing and other institutions with the mandate and capacity to broaden women's participation and integrate gender analysis into policies and programmes, so as to ensure the full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action, and takes note of regional initiatives for strengthening national machineries;

Encourages non-governmental organizations to contribute to the design and implementation of these strategies or national plans of action in addition to their own programmes that complement government efforts;

Calls upon Governments to invite and encourage the active support and participation of a broad and diverse range of other institutional actors, including legislative bodies, academic and research institutions, professional associations, trade unions, local community groups and the media, as well as financial and non-profit organizations for the implementation of the Platform for Action;

Recognizes the importance attached to the regional monitoring of the global and regional platforms for action by regional commissions and other subregional or regional structures, within their mandates, in consultation with Governments, and the necessity of promoting cooperation among Governments of the same region in this respect;

Invites the Economic and Social Council, in order to facilitate the regional implementation, monitoring and evaluation process, to consider reviewing the institutional capacity of the United Nations regional commissions, in accordance with paragraph 302 of the Platform for Action, and to consider, in this context, how best to integrate the inputs by the regional commissions into the overall monitoring and follow-up to the Platform for Action;

Calls upon States to take action to fulfil the commitments made at the Conference for the advancement of women and for the strengthening of international cooperation, and reaffirms that adequate financial resources should be committed at the international level for the implementation of the Platform for Action in the developing countries, in particular in Africa, and in the least developed countries;

Invites the Secretary-General, in the implementation of the United Nations system-wide initiative on Africa, to pay special attention to the needs and role of women as actors and beneficiaries in the development process;

Recognizes that implementation of the Platform for Action in the countries with economies in transition requires continued international cooperation and assistance, as indicated in the Platform for Action;

Calls upon Member States to allocate sufficient resources for undertaking gender impact analyses in order to develop successful national implementation strategies for the Platform for Action;

Stresses that full and effective implementation of the Platform for Action will require a political commitment to make available human and financial resources for the empowerment of women, the integration of a gender perspective in budgetary decisions on policies and programmes, as well as adequate financing of specific programmes for securing equality between women and men;

Welcomes the input of the Commission on the Status of Women to the discussion on the eradication of poverty in the coordination segment of the Economic and Social Council, inter alia, in relation to mainstreaming a gender perspective in poverty eradication activities and the use of available funding sources and mechanisms, with a view to contributing to the goals of poverty eradication and targeting women living in poverty;

Urges Governments, the United Nations system, including the Bretton Woods institutions, relevant international organizations, non-governmental organizations and the private sector to empower women through concrete actions, policies and programmes, including integration of gender perspectives;

Requests Governments and the international community to implement specific programmes for the eradication of poverty and illiteracy, ensuring women's equal access to education, training, employment and the promotion of entrepreneurial activities, and strongly urges the international community to support national efforts towards the advancement of women in developing countries, particularly in Africa, and in the least developed countries;

Reaffirms that, in order to implement the Platform for Action, a reformulation of policies and reallocation of resources may be needed, but that some policy changes may not necessarily have financial implications;

Reaffirms also that, in order to implement the Platform for Action, adequate mobilization of resources at the national and international levels, as well as new and additional resources to the developing countries, in particular in Africa, and the least developed countries, from all available funding mechanisms, including multilateral, bilateral and private sources for the advancement of women, will also be required;

Calls upon those States committed to the 20:20 initiative to integrate a gender perspective fully into its implementation, as referred to in paragraph 358 of the Platform for Action;

Recognizes that the creation of an enabling environment, at the national and international levels, is necessary to ensure the full participation of women in economic activities, and calls upon States to remove obstacles for the full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action;

Calls upon Member States to commit themselves to gender balance, inter alia, through the creation of special mechanisms, in all government-appointed committees, boards and other relevant official bodies, as appropriate, as well as in all international bodies, institutions and organizations, notably by presenting and promoting more women candidates;

Also calls upon Member States to aim at and support gender balance in the composition of delegations to the United Nations and other international forums;

Reaffirms that the implementation of the Platform for Action will require immediate and concerted action by all to create a peaceful, just and humane world based on all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the principle of equality for all people of all ages and from all walks of life, and to this end, recognizes that broad-based and sustained economic growth in the context of sustainable development is necessary to sustain social development and social justice;

Stresses, in relation to the United Nations, that the Platform for Action needs to be implemented through the work of all the bodies and organizations of the system during the period 1995-2000, specifically and as an integral part of wider programming;

Also stresses that the means of implementation of the Platform for Action should include mainstreaming a gender perspective in the context of preparation of the programme budget for the biennium 1998-1999;

Welcomes the endorsement by the Economic and Social Council of the revised system-wide medium-term plan for the advancement of women, 1996-2001 and its decision to undertake, in 1998, a comprehensive mid-term review of the implementation of the revised plan as a basis for future programming and coordination of activities for the advancement and empowerment of women by the United Nations system, including a review of the progress made in mainstreaming a gender perspective in all activities of the United Nations system;

Requests the Secretary-General, in his capacity as Chairman of the Administrative Committee on Coordination, to formulate a new system-wide medium-term plan for the advancement of women to cover the period 2002-2005, to submit a new draft plan to the Economic and Social Council at its substantive session of 2000 in order to provide guidance for the medium-term plans of the individual organizations of the United Nations system and to submit the draft plan to the Commission on the Status of Women at its forty-fourth session for comments;

Reiterates the need for an enhanced framework for international cooperation for gender-related issues in the integrated and comprehensive implementation, follow-up and assessment of the Platform for Action, taking into account the results of global United Nations summits and conferences;

Welcomes the decision of the Economic and Social Council to devote its 1997 coordination segment to mainstreaming a gender perspective, and reiterates its invitation to the Council to consider devoting one high-level segment and one operational segment to the advancement of women and the implementation of the Platform for Action, before the year 2000, taking into account the multi-year programme of work of the Commission on the Status of Women and all other functional commissions of the Council and the need for a system-wide approach to the implementation of the Platform for Action;

Also welcomes the establishment of the Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality, and notes the work done by the Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Gender Issues for the system-wide implementation of the Platform for Action;

Further welcomes the fact that the Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality will serve as a forum for information exchange and the promotion of programme coordination and collaborative arrangements among organizations of the system and will be responsible for addressing, on a comprehensive system-wide basis, all aspects of the implementation of the Platform for Action and gender-related recommendations emanating from other recent international conferences within the purview of the United Nations system;

Welcomes developments in coordination at the inter-agency level, including work done by the Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality which is expected to move forward the conceptual discussion of mainstreaming, and stresses the need for further work to mainstream a gender perspective into the day-to-day work of United Nations staff throughout the system and in intergovernmental action beyond the social sectors and operational activities;

Also welcomes Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/6, in which the Council strengthened the mandate and the terms of reference of the Commission on the Status of Women and endorsed the Commission's multi-year work programme for the period 1996-2000, and also welcomes the agreed conclusions 1996/1 of the Commission on the Status of Women of March 1996 on the Commission's methods of work for dealing with the implementation of the Platform for Action;¹¹

¹¹Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 1996, Supplement No. 6 (E/1996/26), chap. I, sect. C. 1.

Invites once again all other functional commissions of the Economic and Social Council, within their mandates, to take due account of the Platform for Action and to ensure the integration of gender aspects in their respective work;

Welcomes the measures taken by the Secretary-General to date to ensure coordination of policy within the United Nations for the implementation of the Platform for Action and the mainstreaming of a system-wide gender perspective in all activities of the United Nations system, including training, in accordance with paragraph 326 of the Platform for Action;

Requests the Secretary-General to present action-oriented recommendations to the Economic and Social Council at its coordination segment on means to enhance system-wide coordination on gender issues and to mainstream a gender perspective throughout the United Nations system;

Also requests the Secretary-General to continue to disseminate the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action as widely as possible, including to the competent organs of the United Nations and the specialized agencies;

Reiterates its request to the Secretary-General to ensure that the Division for the Advancement of Women can effectively carry out all the tasks foreseen for it in the Platform for Action by, inter alia, providing sufficient human and financial resources within the regular budget of the United Nations;

Requests the Secretary-General, in cooperation with the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, to ensure that the resident coordinators fully incorporate a gender perspective in integrating the follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women into the coordinated follow-up to recent global United Nations conferences;

Welcomes the decision of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women to amend its reporting guidelines in line with the recommendations of paragraph 323 of the Platform for Action to enable it to consider reports submitted by States parties, and invites States parties to include information on measures taken to implement the Platform for Action in their reports;

Notes the importance of the activities undertaken by the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women in the implementation of the Platform for Action;

Commends the work of the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women on the issues addressing, inter alia, the process of the economic and political empowerment of women, statistics and indicators in gender issues, and requests the Institute to incorporate in its biennial work programme appropriate actions in order to carry out research and training components relevant to the twelve critical areas of concern and the implementation of the Platform for Action, within its area of expertise;

Also commends the work of the United Nations Development Fund for Women in providing a strategic and focused response to the follow-up and implementation of the Platform for Action through its advocacy and operational activities in support of women's economic and political empowerment, and encourages the Fund to provide technical support to operationalize the Platform for Action at the national level through, inter alia, the resident coordinator system and taking into account decision 1996/43 of 13 September 1996 of the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme/United Nations Population Fund;¹²

¹²See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 1996, Supplement No. 13, (E/1996/33).

Encourages the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the Division for the Advancement of Women to strengthen their cooperation and coordination;

Encourages international financial institutions to review and revise policies, procedures and staffing to ensure that investments and programmes benefit women and thus contribute to sustainable development;

Invites the World Trade Organization to consider how it might contribute to the implementation of the Platform for Action, including activities in cooperation with the United Nations system;

Decides to appraise the progress on an annual basis and to retain in the agenda of its forthcoming sessions the item entitled "Implementation of the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women", with a view to assessing, in the year 2000, the progress achieved in the implementation of the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women and the Platform for Action in an appropriate forum;

Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its fifty-second session and thereafter annually, through the Commission on the Status of Women and the Economic and Social Council, on ways to enhance the capacity of the Organization and of the United Nations system to support the ongoing follow-up to the Conference in the most integrated and effective way, including human and financial requirements and measures taken and progress achieved in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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