role of non-governmental organizations, and their innovative ideas and experience, as well as the national reports of concrete suggestions based on grass-roots experience, as important contributions for the formulation of the Platform. Women’s needs, particularly as regards health and at all stages of life, should be viewed in a broader context and given attention in developing the key priority issues for the Platform. 12. Many representatives indicated that the Platform for Action should be action-oriented, concise and written in a language that was simple and easy to understand. Several representatives said that it should contain clearly specified and realistic goals, concrete recommendations, well-defined targets and priorities, as well as indicators for measurable achievement. A few representatives pointed to the need to organize the action required according to short-, medium- and long-term plans and to call upon Governments to make new political commitments and to specify the efforts required at the regional and national levels. 13. Several representatives stressed the need to build into the Platform carefully specified implementation and monitoring mechanisms, as well as accountability measures. The Platform should focus on areas that had neither been adequately discussed nor adequately implemented so far. A few representatives emphasized that the special topics and concrete suggestions given in earlier resolutions on the formulation of the Platform should be taken into account. One representative questioned the need for a statement of mission and a status report in the Platform, stating that their contribution to the Platform would be limited. Another representative stated that equality was a matter of human rights for women, and suggested that the statement of mission should be reformulated to take that human rights approach into account, rather than stressing the enhanced cost-efficiency and cost-effectiveness of powersharing. Several representatives indicated that the Platform should focus on the idea that sustainable development could only be built upon the basis of equitable partnership between women and men, and that the implementation of the Forward-looking Strategies was to a great extent determined by solidarity between women and men, and a redefinition of gender values. 14. One representative referred to the conceptual difficulties in drawing up the Platform, and stated that approaches such as "mainstreaming" and "empowerment" should be regarded as mutually complementary and not competing approaches, and that institution-building was a necessary prerequisite for the efficient implementation of new policy ideas on women. Review and appraisal 15. Most representatives intervened on the issue of the review and appraisal of the implementation of the Forward-looking Strategies and stressed its importance both as a preparatory process for the Conference and as a means of implementing of the Forward-looking Strategies. As such, the review and appraisal should help countries and regions in identifying priorities and in focusing on them. 16. Some representatives recognized that the key to the success of the exercise was at the national level and that it was therefore urgent to begin planning and organizing the review and appraisal. A number of countries had already begun to do so. It was indicated that preparations at the national level also required the involvement of diverse actors, in particular non-governmental organizations which were repositories of experience gained at the grass-roots level, of the many innovations made since the World Conference to Review and Appraise the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women: Equality, Development and Peace, Nairobi, and of qualitative data. Such information would be a useful contribution to the Platform for Action. -81-