Women in Development

A/RES/62/206No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 58bWomen in development, published in 2008.

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, 2009.

2009A/64/162Integrating a gender perspective into national development strategies report of the Secretary-General

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

What does this mandate say?

29 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General;

Calls upon Member States, the United Nations system and other international and regional organizations, within their respective mandates, and all sectors of civil society, including non-governmental organizations, as well as all women and men to fully commit themselves and to intensify their contributions to the implementation of the Beijing DeclarationError: Reference source not found and Platform for ActionError: Reference source not found and the outcome of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly;Error: Reference source not found

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 creating a favourable and conducive national and international environment in all fields of life for the effective integration of women in development;

Urges Member States, non-governmental organizations and the United Nations system to accelerate further efforts to increase the number of women in decision-making and to build their capacity as agents of change, and to empower women to participate actively and effectively in the development, implementation and evaluation of national development and/or poverty eradication policies, strategies and programmes, including, where appropriate, programme-based approaches;

Urges Member States to incorporate a gender perspective, commensurate with gender equality goals, into the design, implementation, monitoring and reporting of national development strategies, and in this regard calls upon the United Nations system to support national efforts to develop methodologies and tools and to promote capacity-building and evaluation;

Encourages Member States to ensure inclusive and more effective participation of national mechanisms for gender equality and women’s empowerment in formulating national development strategies, including poverty eradication strategies, and calls upon the United Nations system to support national efforts in this regard;

Calls upon Member States to continue to increase women’s representation and participation in government decision-making at all levels in development policy areas to ensure that the priorities, needs and contributions of women are taken into consideration by, inter alia, providing access to training; developing measures to reconcile family and professional responsibilities; and eliminating gender stereotyping in appointments and promotions;

Recognizes that violence against women and girls is one of the obstacles to the achievement of the objectives of equality, development and peace and the implications of violence against women and girls for the social and economic development of communities and States, and calls upon States to elaborate and implement plans of action to eliminate violence against women and girls;

Also recognizes the need to strengthen the capacity of Governments to incorporate a gender perspective into policies and decision-making, and encourages all Governments, international organizations, including the United Nations system, and other relevant stakeholders to assist and support developing countries’ efforts in integrating a gender perspective into all aspects of policymaking, including through the provision of technical assistance and financial resources;

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;

Encourages Governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations and other actors of civil society to promote and protect the rights of women workers, 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 Member States 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; and to encourage the financial sector to mainstream gender perspectives in their policies and programmes;

Recognizes the role of microfinance, including microcredit, in the eradication of poverty, the empowerment of women and the generation of employment, notes in this regard 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;

Urges all Governments to ensure women’s equal rights with men and their equal access to all levels of education;

Urges Member States to encourage women entrepreneurs, including through education and training of women in business, administration and information and communications technologies, and invites business associations to assist national efforts in this regard;

Calls upon Governments to promote, inter alia, through legislation and family-friendly and gender-sensitive work environments, the facilitation of breastfeeding for working mothers and the provision of the necessary care for working women’s children and other dependants and to consider promoting policies and programmes, as appropriate, to enable men and women to reconcile their work, social and family responsibilities;

Urges Member States to design and revise laws that ensure that women are accorded full and equal rights to own land, housing 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;

Recognizes the need to empower women economically and politically, particularly poor women, and in this regard encourages Governments, with the support of their development partners, to invest in appropriate infrastructure and other projects, as well as to create opportunities for economic empowerment, in order to alleviate for women and girls the burden of time-consuming everyday tasks;

Expresses its concern at the overall expansion and feminization of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and that women and girls bear a disproportionate share of the burden imposed by the HIV/AIDS crisis, that they are more easily infected, that they play a key role in care and that they have become more vulnerable to violence, stigma and discrimination, poverty, and marginalization from their families and communities as a result of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and calls upon Governments and the international community to intensify efforts towards the goal of universal access to comprehensive HIV prevention programmes, treatment, care and support by 2010;

Reaffirms the commitment to achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015, as set out at the International Conference on Population and Development, integrating this goal into strategies to attain the internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in the United Nations Millennium DeclarationError: Reference source not found aimed at reducing maternal mortality, improving maternal health, reducing child mortality, promoting gender equality, combating HIV/AIDS and eradicating poverty;

Recognizes that a substantial increase in official development assistance and other resources will be required if developing countries are to achieve the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals, and that, in order to build support for official development assistance, cooperation will be needed in further improving policies and development strategies, both nationally and internationally, to enhance aid effectiveness;

Encourages the international community, the United Nations system, the private sector and civil society to continue 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 Millennium Summit, the International Conference on Financing for Development, the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the Second World Assembly on Ageing, the twenty-third and twenty-fourth special sessions of the General Assembly and other relevant United Nations conferences and summits;

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

Stresses the importance of collecting and exchanging all relevant information needed on the role of women in development, including data on international migration, as well as the need to develop statistics disaggregated by age and sex, and in that regard encourages developed countries and relevant entities of the United Nations to provide support and assistance to developing countries, upon their request, with respect to establishing, developing and strengthening their databases and information systems;

Calls upon all organizations of the United Nations system, within their organizational mandates, to mainstream a gender perspective and to pursue gender equality in their country programmes, planning instruments and sector-wide programmes and to articulate specific country-level goals and targets in this field in accordance with the national development strategies;

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;

Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the General Assembly at its sixty-fourth session a report on the progress made in the implementation of the present resolution, including on integrating a gender perspective into national development strategies;

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

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Women in Development

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