Eradicating rural poverty to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development A/RES/74/237 6. Recognizes the critical role and contribution of rural women, including smallholders and women farmers, and indigenous women and women in local communities, and their traditional knowledge in enhancing agricultural and rural development, improving food security and eradicating rural poverty; 7. Stresses the importance of taking targeted measures to eradicate poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, by formulating rural development strategies with clear poverty eradication goals, strengthening national statistical capacity and monitoring systems and implementing nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all; 8. Recognizes the importance of employment for pro-poor growth in rural areas, and encourages the United Nations system and development partners to assist countries, upon their request, in mainstreaming employment into investment policy and poverty reduction strategies, including those focused on rural area development, and fostering rapid agricultural productivity growth, e specially in developing countries, by increasing investment in agricultural and related rural off -farm activities; 9. Also recognizes the need to design, implement and pursue genderresponsive economic and social policies aimed at, inter alia, eradicating poverty, including in rural areas, and combating the feminization of poverty, ensuring the full and equal participation of rural women in the development, implementation and follow-up of development policies and programmes and poverty eradication strategies, supporting increased rural employment and decent work, and promoting the participation of women at all levels and sectors of the rural economy and in diverse on-farm and off-farm economic activities, including sustainable agricultural and fisheries production; 10. Encourages Member States, international organizations, the private sector and other partners to develop programmes to foster the creation of decent work in rural areas and increase the investment in agricultural and related off -farm activities, especially for young people; 11. Emphasizes that, globally, 2 billion people, primarily in rural areas in developing countries, do not have access to formal financial services, and encourages further efforts of the international community to offer affordable ways to access finance for the financially excluded in rural areas; 12. Also emphasizes the need to increase investment, including through enhanced international cooperation, in rural infrastructure, especially in roads, water, sanitation and electricity; 13. Expresses its commitment to raising public awareness to promote the eradication of poverty and extreme poverty in all countries, to mobilizing the enthusiasm and creativity of all stakeholders, especially the rural residents living in extreme poverty, to fight against poverty, to promoting their active participation in the design and implementation of programmes and policies which affect them, and to providing quality education for the rural poor, with the aim of achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development; 14. Reiterates the need for enhanced and expanded access by developing countries to appropriate technologies that are pro-poor and raise productivity, and underlines the need for measures to increase investment in agriculture, including modern technologies, as well as in natural resources management and capacitybuilding of developing countries; 15. Stresses that the achievement of sustainable development and the eradication of poverty also hinge on the ability and readiness of countries to effectively mobilize domestic resources, attract foreign direct investment, fulfil 19-22511 5/6