Women in Development

A/RES/56/188No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 97aWomen in development, published in 2002.

What other versions does this mandate have?

15 versions · 1996–2024

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/79/223

2024A/RES/79/223Women in developmentLatestCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/77/181Women in developmentCompare with previous version
2020A/RES/74/235Women in developmentCompare with previous version
2018A/RES/72/234Women in developmentCompare with previous version
2016A/RES/70/219Women in developmentCompare with previous version

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2003.

2003A/58/135The empowerment of women and integration of gender perspectives in the promotion of economic growth, poverty eradication and sustainable development report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

32 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General entitled “Women in development: access to financial resources: a gender perspective”;

Calls for the accelerated and effective implementation of the Beijing DeclarationError: Reference source not found and Platform for ActionError: Reference source not found and the relevant provisions of the outcome documents of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly,Error: Reference source not found as well as the outcomes of all other major United Nations conferences and summits and other relevant special sessions of the General Assembly and their follow-up processes;

Stresses that a favourable and conducive national and international environment in all fields of life is necessary for the effective integration of women in development;

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

Recognizes the mutually reinforcing links between gender equality and poverty eradication, as well as the need to elaborate and implement, where appropriate, in consultation with civil society, comprehensive gender-sensitive poverty eradication strategies that address social, structural and macroeconomic issues;

Stresses the importance of developing national strategies for the promotion of sustainable and productive entrepreneurial activities that will generate income among disadvantaged women and women living in poverty;

Urges all Governments to ensure women’s equal rights with men and their full and equal access to education, training, employment, technology and economic and financial resources, including credit, in particular for rural women and women in the informal sector, and to facilitate, where appropriate, the transition of women from the informal to the formal sector;

Encourages Governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and other actors of civil society to promote and protect the rights of women workers and to take action to remove structural and legal barriers as well as stereotypical attitudes to gender equality at work, and to initiate positive steps to promote equal pay for equal work or work of equal value;

Urges all Governments to take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women with regard to their access to bank loans, mortgages and other forms of financial credit, giving special attention to poor, uneducated women, and to support women’s access to legal assistance;

Calls upon Governments and entrepreneurial associations to facilitate the access of women, including young women and women entrepreneurs, to education and training in business, administration and information and communication technologies;

Recognizes the role of microfinance, including microcredit, in the eradication of poverty, the empowerment of women and the generation of employment, and in this regard notes the importance of sound national financial systems and encourages the strengthening of existing and emerging microcredit institutions and their capacities, including through the support of international financial institutions;

Stresses the need for assistance to enable women in developing countries, particularly grass-roots women’s groups, to have full access to and use of new technologies, including information technologies, for their empowerment;

Urges States to design and revise laws that ensure that women are accorded full and equal rights to own land and other property, including through inheritance, and to undertake administrative reforms and other necessary measures to give women the same right as men to credit, capital and appropriate technologies and access to markets and information;

Calls upon Governments to encourage the financial sector to mainstream a gender perspective in its policies and programmes, in particular by:

Exploring viable options to reach people living in poverty, in particular women, including through international public and/or private funds;

Designing savings schemes that are attractive to the poor and to poor women in particular;

Undertaking research to learn more about the characteristics, financial needs and performance of businesses owned by women;

Working towards equal treatment for women clients through comprehensive gender-awareness training for staff at all levels and better representation of women in decision-making positions;

Requests Governments to ensure the full participation of women in decision-making and in policy formulation and implementation at all levels so that their priorities, skills and potentials can be adequately reflected in national policy;

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 as well as the provision of the necessary care for working women’s children and other dependants;

Calls upon the international community to make efforts to mitigate the effects of excess volatility and economic disruption, which have a disproportionately negative impact on women, and to enhance trade opportunities for developing countries in order to improve the economic conditions of women;

Urges the international community, the United Nations system and relevant organizations to give priority to assisting the efforts of developing countries to ensure the full and effective participation of women in deciding and implementing development strategies and integrating gender concerns into national programmes, including by providing adequate resources to operational activities for development in support of the efforts of Governments to ensure, inter alia, full and equal access of women to health care, capital, education, training and technology, as well as full and equal participation in all decision-making;

Expresses its appreciation to the developed countries that have agreed to and have reached the target of 0.7 per cent of their gross national product for overall official development assistance, and calls upon the developed countries that have not yet done so to strengthen their efforts to achieve the agreed target as soon as possible and, where agreed, within that target, to earmark 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of gross national product for the least developed countries;

Encourages the international community, the United Nations system, the private sector and civil society to provide the necessary financial resources to assist national Governments in their efforts to meet the development targets and benchmarks agreed upon at the World Summit for Social Development, the Fourth World Conference on Women, the International Conference on Population and Development, the twenty-third and twenty-fourth special sessions of the General Assembly and other relevant United Nations conferences and summits;

Encourages the United Nations system and international and regional organizations, as appropriate, to assist Governments, at their request, in building institutional capacity and developing national action plans or further implementing existing action plans for the implementation of the Beijing Platform for Action;

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

Encourages the International Conference on Financing for Development, to be held at Monterrey, Mexico, from 18 to 22 March 2002, to examine all aspects of financing for development from a gender perspective;

Encourages Governments to integrate fully a gender perspective in their preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to be held at Johannesburg, South Africa, from 26 August to 4 September 2002;

Calls upon the United Nations system to integrate gender mainstreaming into all its programmes and policies, including in the integrated follow-up to United Nations conferences, in accordance with agreed conclusions 1997/2 on gender mainstreaming adopted by the Economic and Social Council at its substantive session of 1997;

Reiterates its request to the Secretary-General to update the World Survey on the Role of Women in Development for the consideration of the General Assembly at its fifty-ninth session; as in the past, the survey should focus on selective emerging development issues that have an impact on the role of women in the economy at the national, regional and international levels;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its fifty-eighth session a report on the progress made in the implementation of the present resolution, including the impact of globalization on the empowerment of women and their integration in development;

Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its fifty-eighth session the sub-item entitled “Women in development”.

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Women in Development

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