A/RES/56/129 informal sector, are visible, and assessing the feasibility of developing and improving mechanisms, such as time-use studies, to measure in quantitative terms unpaid work, recognizing the potential for it to be reflected in the formulation and implementation of policies and programmes at the national and regional levels; (d) Investing in and strengthening efforts to meet the basic needs of rural women through capacity-building 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; (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 through, inter alia, the provision of training and capacity-building programmes, including legal literacy; (f) Promoting programmes to enable rural women and men to reconcile their work and family responsibilities and to encourage men to share equally with women household and childcare responsibilities; (g) Integrating a gender perspective into the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development policies and programmes with an emphasis on reducing the disproportionate number of rural women living in poverty; (h) Designing and implementing policies that promote and protect the enjoyment by women of all human rights and fundamental freedoms and creating an environment that does not tolerate violations of the rights of women and girls; (i) Developing specific assistance programmes and advisory services to promote economic skills of rural women in banking, modern trading and financial procedures and providing microcredit and other financial and business services to a greater number of women in rural areas for their economic empowerment; 7. Invites the Commission on the Status of Women to pay due attention to the situation of rural women in the consideration of the priority themes identified in its multi-year programme of work for the period 2002–2006; 8. Invites the relevant organizations of the United Nations system dealing with issues of development to address and support the empowerment of rural women and their specific needs in their programmes and strategies, including in the context of globalization; 9. Stresses the need to identify the best practices for ensuring that rural women have access to and full participation in the area of information and communications technologies, inter alia, through specific studies, and invites the International Telecommunication Union to consider this matter in connection with the preparations for the World Summit on the Information Society; 10. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its fifty-eighth session on the implementation of the present resolution. 88th plenary meeting 19 December 2001 3