A/RES/72/148
Improvement of the situation of women and girls in rural areas
meeting of the General Assembly known as the World Conference on Indigenous
Peoples, 8 and recalling other instruments, as appropriate, such as the United Nations
Declaration on the Right to Development, 9
Welcoming the adoption of the outcome document of the United Nations summit
for the adoption of the post-2015 development agenda, entitled “Transforming our
world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, 10 and the Addis Ababa Action
Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development, 11
Recalling that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development addresses the need
to achieve gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls, in order to
ensure that no one is left behind, and that the systematic mainstreaming of a gender
perspective in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda is crucial,
Taking note of the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Women’s Economic
Empowerment,
Recognizing that rural women and, where applicable, girls are critical agents in
poverty and hunger reduction, that they are crucial to achieving food security and
improved nutrition in poor and vulnerable households and to environmental
sustainability and that, in other ways, they are also critical to the achievement of all
of the Sustainable Development Goals,
Recognizing also that progress on the achievement of gender equality and the
empowerment of women and girls, in particular in rural areas, has been held back
owing to the persistence of historical and structural unequal power relations between
women and men, poverty and inequalities and disadvantages in access to resources
and opportunities that limit women’s and girls’ capabilities, and growing gaps in
equality of opportunity, discriminatory laws, policies, social norms, attitudes, harmful
customary and contemporary practices and gender stereotypes,
Expressing its deep concern that discrimination and violence against women and
girls, including those in rural areas, continue to occur in all parts of the world and
that all forms of violence against women and girls are impediments to the
development of their full potential as equal partners with men and boys in all aspects
of life, as well as obstacles to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals,
Expressing its deep concern also that, while women contribute more than
50 per cent of the food produced worldwide, they account for 70 per cent of the
world’s hungry, and that women and girls are disproportionately affected by hunger,
food insecurity and poverty, in part as a result of gender inequality and discrimination,
Expressing concern that many rural women continue to be economically and
socially disadvantaged because of their limited access to economic resources and
opportunities and their limited access or lack of access to quality education, hea lthcare services, justice, land, sustainable and time- and labour-saving infrastructure and
technology, water and sanitation and other resources, as well as to credit, extension
services and agricultural inputs, and expressing concern also about their exc lusion
from planning and decision-making and their disproportionate share of unpaid care
and domestic work,
Emphasizing that rural women’s poverty is directly related to the absence of
economic opportunities and autonomy and the lack of access to economic and
productive resources, quality education and support services and of women ’s
participation in the decision-making process, and recognizing that rural women’s
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Resolution
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Resolution
69/2.
41/128, annex.
70/1.
69/313, annex.
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