F inancing for gender
equality and the
empowerment of women
Development and other relevant United Nations
summits and conferences are essential contributions to the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including those
contained in the United Nations Millennium
Declaration, in particular, on the promotion of
gender equality and the empowerment of women.
1. The Commission on the Status of Women reaffirms
the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action,
which emphasized the need for political commitment to make available human and financial
resources for the empowerment of women and
that funding had to be identified and mobilized
from all sources and across all sectors to achieve
the goals of gender equality and the empowerment
of women, and the outcome of the twenty-third
special session of the General Assembly, which
called upon Governments to incorporate a gender
perspective into the design, development, adoption
and execution of all policies and budgetary processes, as appropriate, in order to promote equitable, effective and appropriate resource allocation
and establish adequate budgetary allocations to
support gender equality and development programmes that enhance women’s empowerment.
5. The Commission reaffirms the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women and its Optional Protocol and the
Convention on the Rights of the Child, and takes note
of the work of the Committee on the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women towards the practical realization of the principle of equality between
women and men and between girls and boys.
6. The Commission also reaffirms that States have
primary responsibility for promoting gender equality
and the empowerment of women and girls and that
gender mainstreaming and national machineries are
necessary and play a critical role in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for
Action and that, in order for national machineries to
be effective, a strong institutional framework with
clear mandates, location at the highest possible
level, accountability mechanisms, partnership with
civil society, a transparent political process, adequate
financial and human resources and continued strong
political commitment are crucial.
2. The Commission reaffirms the declaration adopted
on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the
Fourth World Conference on Women, which
stressed that challenges and obstacles remained in
the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action and the outcome documents
of the twenty-third special session of the General
Assembly, and pledged to take further action to
ensure their full and accelerated implementation.
7.
The Commission recalls that the Platform for Action
recognizes that its implementation requires adequate financial resources committed at the national
and international levels and that strengthening
national capacities in developing countries in this
regard requires striving for the fulfilment of the
agreed targets of overall official development assistance from developed countries as soon as possible.
The Commission recognizes the importance of the
full utilization of all sources of development finance.
3. The Commission recalls the outcome of the
International Conference on Financing for
Development held in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2002,
which affirms, inter alia, that a holistic approach
to the interconnected national, international and
systemic challenges of financing for development,
sustainable, gender-sensitive, people-centred development, in all parts of the globe is essential.
8. The Commission also recognizes the importance of
gender mainstreaming as a tool for achieving gender
equality and, to that end, the need to promote the
mainstreaming of a gender perspective in the design,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and programmes in all political, economic and
social spheres and to strengthen the capabilities of
the United Nations system in the area of gender.
4. The Commission also recalls the 2005 World
Summit and reaffirms that the full and effective
implementation of the Beijing Declaration and
Platform for Action and the outcome of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly,
the International Conference on Population and
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