decision-making, showing the advantages of women's participation in top management and conversely the costs of their exclusion. With regard to the United Nations system, a special data section on women managers should be part of the 1998 synthesis report and the report on the status of the world's women. This could serve as a special mechanism for monitoring how gender-balance goals are being achieved. 27. The international community, while strengthen- ing international cooperation, should emphasize the importance of an open, rule-based, equitable, secure, non discriminatory, transparent and predictable multilateral trading system that will also ensure the equal access of women to markets and technologies and resources at both the national and international levels. ■ 26. Issues such as the impact on women of struc- tural adjustment and liberalization policies, which include privatization, financial and trade policies, should be further examined and could be taken up in the context of the report of the SecretaryGeneral on the effective mobilization and integration of women in development, to be considered by the General Assembly at its fifty-second session. Source: United Nations document E/1997/27 4