A/RES/59/239 accordance with national circumstances, and enhancing access to affordable credit by the urban poor; 13. Invites Governments to continue to promote linkages between urban and rural areas in line with the Habitat Agenda, which recognized that cities and rural areas are interdependent economically, socially and environmentally; 14. Encourages Governments and UN-Habitat to continue to promote partnerships with local authorities, non-governmental organizations, the private sector and other Habitat Agenda partners, including women’s groups and academic and professional groups, in order to empower them, within the legal framework and conditions of each country, to play a more effective role in the provision of adequate shelter for all and sustainable human settlements development in an urbanizing world; 15. Also encourages Governments to support and enable the participation of youth in the implementation of the Habitat Agenda through social, cultural and economic activities at the city level and other national- and local-level activities; 16. Further encourages Governments to include issues pertaining to shelter, sustainable human settlements and urban poverty in their national development strategies, including poverty reduction strategy papers, where they exist; 17. Urges the donor community to support the efforts of developing countries to make pro-poor investments in services and infrastructure in order to improve living environments, in particular in slums and informal settlements; 18. Requests UN-Habitat, within its mandate, to continue to support the efforts of countries affected by natural disasters and complex emergencies to develop prevention, rehabilitation and reconstruction programmes for the transition from relief to development, and encourages UN-Habitat to continue to work closely with the members of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee and other relevant agencies in the United Nations system in this field; 19. Invites the Secretary-General to incorporate the assessment of progress made towards the target of achieving a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum-dwellers by 2020 in his report on the review in 2005 of the implementation of the United Nations Millennium Declaration;6 20. Calls upon UN-Habitat and the Division for Sustainable Development of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the Secretariat to work together closely in the preparations for the thirteenth session of the Commission on Sustainable Development in order to ensure a fruitful policy discussion of the thematic cluster of issues on water, sanitation and human settlements; 21. Requests the Secretary-General to submit a report to the General Assembly at its sixtieth session on the implementation of the present resolution; 22. Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its sixtieth session an item entitled “Implementation of the outcome of the United Nations Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II) and strengthening of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat)”. 75th plenary meeting 22 December 2004 4