A/RES/S-23/3 All Forms of Discrimination against Women. 8 In many countries, progress has been achieved in terms of the visibility, status, outreach and coordination of activities of these machineries. Gender mainstreaming has been widely acknowledged as a strategy to enhance the impact of policies to promote gender equality. The goal of the strategy is to incorporate a gender perspective in all legislation, policies, programmes and projects. These machineries, despite their limited financial resources, have made a significant contribution to the development of human resources in the field of gender studies and have also contributed to the growing efforts for the generation and dissemination of data disaggregated by sex and age, gender-sensitive research and documentation. Within the United Nations system, much progress has been made in the mainstreaming of a gender perspective, including through the development of tools and the creation of gender focal points. 25. Obstacles. In a number of countries, inadequate financial and human resources and a lack of political will and commitment are the main obstacles confronting national machineries. This is further exacerbated by insufficient understanding of gender equality and gender mainstreaming among government structures, as well as prevailing gender stereotypes, discriminatory attitudes, competing government priorities and, in some countries, unclear mandates, a marginalized location within the national government structures, lack of data disaggregated by sex and age in many areas and insufficiently applied methods for assessing progress, in addition to paucity of authority and insufficient links to civil society. The activities of the national machineries have been also hindered by structural and communication problems within and among government agencies. I. Human rights of women 26. Achievements. Legal reforms have been undertaken to prohibit all forms of discrimination and discriminatory provisions have been eliminated in civil, penal and personal status law governing marriage and family relations, all forms of violence, women’s property and ownership rights and women’s political, work and employment rights. Steps have been taken to realize women’s de facto enjoyment of their human rights through the creation of an enabling environment, including the adoption of policy measures, the improvement of enforcement and monitoring mechanisms and the implementation of legal literacy and awareness campaigns at all levels. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women 8 has been ratified or acceded to by one hundred and sixty-five countries and its full implementation has been promoted by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. At its fifty-fourth session, the General Assembly adopted the Optional Protocol to the Convention, 9 allowing women claiming to be victims of a violation of any of the rights set forth in the Convention by a State party to submit their claims to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, to which non-governmental organizations contributed by raising awareness and generating support for its adoption. Women’s non-governmental organizations have also contributed to raising awareness that women’s rights are human rights. They also generated support for the inclusion of a gender perspective in the elaboration of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.7 Progress has also been made to integrate the human rights of women and mainstream a gender perspective into the United Nations system, including into the work of the 8 9 Resolution 34/180, annex. Resolution 54/4, annex. 11