4. Calls upon Governments and international organizations, in particular United Nations organizations, to collect and disseminate information on the situation of rural women, their concerns and the strategies required for their advancement through the development of appropriate information channels; 5. Urges Governments on the one hand, to enforce existing legislation in order to allow women to enjoy their legal rights fully and, on the other, to promote legislative initiatives that guarantee equity in the wage system and increase the status of women in agriculture, family enterprises, the professions and the informal sector; 6. Also urges Governments to consider the need to revise national legislation so as to give rural women rights regarding access to land ownership and technology as well as natural and productive resources; 7. Further urges Governments to formulate policies and provide effective support to rural women and seek the assistance of international and non-governmental organizations with respect to their gaining access to incomegenerating activities, and to ensure the development of economic structures that create new job opportunities, the development of entrepreneurship, the promotion of credit programmes that provide equity financing so as to facilitate the establishment of small businesses by rural women, and the introduction of more efficient information systems to facilitate economic activities; 8. Calls upon Governments to institutions to provide support for programmes adapted to the needs and and facilitate the establishment of encourage relevant development and financial the promotion of grass-roots credit activities of rural women so as to encourage small enterprises; 9. Recommends that Governments create and strengthen local advisory training programmes and extension services, as well as basic and higher education for rural women, so as to increase their awareness about non-traditional careers and business opportunities and to improve their access to them; 10. Calls upon Governments to promote the provision of low-cost primary health care in rural areas and to develop and promote sensitization campaigns to encourage low-income rural women to utilize primary health-care facilities; 11. Urges Governments to promote an equitable distribution of income and resources for both economically productive and reproductive tasks and activities and to promote affordable and sustainable pension and social security schemes for rural people; 12. Recommends that Governments take into account the concepts of gender, socio-economic gender analysis, population, environment, sustainable development and poverty eradication in all policies and programmes and provide rural women with the necessary incentives, capacities and skills to effectively carry out the management of the natural resources that they depend on and to secure a healthy environment and shelter; 13. Appeals to Governments to empower rural women, to be aware of and develop their potential and to actively engage, individually or in groups, in the fight for the enforcement of their rights, the improvement of their civil, personal and professional status, and the increasing of their representation in sufficient number in all policy-making, decision-making and consultative bodies and functions; -31-