A/RES/54/135
Page 2
Noting also that the globalization process has had some benefits by providing opportunities for wage
employment for rural women in new sectors,
Mindful of the fact that the available data and existing tools of measurement and analysis are insufficient
for a full understanding of the gender implications of the processes of globalization and rural change, and
their impact on rural women,
Recognizing the urgent need to take appropriate measures aimed at further improving the situation of
women in rural areas,
1.
Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General;5
2. Invites Member States, in collaboration with United Nations organizations and civil society, to
continue their efforts to implement the outcome of and to ensure an integrated and coordinated follow-up
to United Nations conferences and summits, including their five-year reviews, and to attach greater
importance to the improvement of the situation of rural women in their national, regional and global
development strategies by, inter alia:
(a) Investing in and strengthening efforts to meet the basic needs of rural women through capacitybuilding and human resources development measures and the provision of a safe and reliable water supply,
health services, including family planning services, and nutritional programmes as well as education and
literacy programmes and social support measures;
(b) Designing and revising laws to ensure that, where private ownership of land and property exists,
rural women are accorded full and equal rights to own land and other property, including through the right
to inheritance, and undertaking administrative reforms and other necessary measures to give women the same
right as men to credit, capital, appropriate technologies and access to markets and information;
(c) Integrating a gender perspective into the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of
development policies and programmes;
(d) Providing microcredit and other financial and business services to a greater number of women in
rural areas for generating self-employment among them and eradicating poverty;
(e) Pursuing the political and socio-economic empowerment of rural women by supporting their full
and equal participation in decision-making at all levels, including in rural institutions;
(f) Placing a renewed focus on the issue of rural women within the context of the review and appraisal
of the implementation of the Beijing Declaration2 and the Platform for Action3 adopted by the Fourth World
Conference on Women;
(g) Taking steps towards ensuring that women’s unpaid work and contributions to on-farm and offfarm production, including income generated in the informal sector, are visible and recorded in economic
surveys and statistics at the local and national levels;
5
A/54/123–E/1999/66.
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