administrative measures to facilitate the reconciliation of work and personal and/or family life, such
as child and dependant care, parental leave and
flexible working schemes for men and women and,
where appropriate, shorter working hours.
21. The international community, in particular the
creditor countries and international financial
institutions, including the Bretton Woods institutions, should further pursue effective, equitable,
development-oriented and durable solutions to the
external debt and debt-servicing problems of the
developing countries on the basis of existing debt
relief and reduction mechanisms, including debt
reduction, grants and concessional financial flows,
in particular for the least developed countries, taking into account the negative effect of these issues
on women and women's programmes.
16. Governments should consider ratifying the new ILO
Convention on home-based workers.
17. Governments and employers should ensure the
protection of the rights of migrant women workers,
by creating better educational and employment
opportunities, preventing and combating trafficking in women and children, and eliminating discrimination against women in the labour market.
22. The funds, programmes and specialized agen-
cies of the United Nations system, including the
Bretton Woods institutions, and the World Trade
Organization, within their respective mandates,
should improve coordination and dialogue at all
levels, including the field level, in order to ensure
the effectiveness of their programmes and policies
to support gender equality.
18. Governments should monitor and enforce equal
opportunity policies and labour laws pertaining
to the practices of all of the national and transnational corporations operating in their countries.
19. Women and men should identify and support
23. Development policies should focus on the eco-
women-friendly corporations and socially responsible businesses through investments and the use of
their services or products.
nomic empowerment of women. The interlinkage
between national policies at the macrolevel and
economic and social gender roles and relations at
the microlevel should be clear in order to make the
policies more effective.The impact on women of
liberalization policies, which include privatization,
financial and trade policies, should be assessed.
20. The unpaid work of women, such as work in
agriculture, food production, voluntary work, work
in family business, and work in natural resource
management and in the household, is a considerable contribution to the economy. Unpaid work
should be measured and valued through existing
and improved mechanisms, including by:
24. Governments should commit themselves to the
goal of gender balance, with special emphasis on
reaching a critical mass of women, as soon as possible, when nominating representatives to serve on
governing bodies of the organizations of the United
Nations system and intergovernmental bodies
dealing with policy-making in the areas of finance,
economic development, trade and commerce
(for example, the Fifth Committee and Second
Committee of the General Assembly, the Economic
and Social Council, the Trade and Development
Board, the Industrial Development Board and the
General Council of the World Trade Organization).
(a) Measuring, in quantitative terms, unremuner-
ated work that is outside national accounts,
working to improve methods to assess its value,
and accurately reflecting its value in satellite or
other official accounts that are separate from
but consistent with core national accounts;
(b) Conducting regular time-use studies to measure,
in quantitative terms, unremunerated work;
(c) Providing resources and technical assistance to
developing countries and countries with economies in transition, in valuing and making visible
women's unpaid work.
25. The production and use of disaggregated statistics
by sex should be promoted as a fundamental tool
for monitoring the gender division of the labour
market and the participation of women in highlevel management positions, including economic
3