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AGENDA 21, CHAPTER 24



GLOBAL ACTION FOR WOMEN TOWARDS
SUSTAINABLE AND EQUITABLE DEVELOPMENT







NOTE:     This is a final, advanced version of a chapter of Agenda 21, as adopted by
          the Plenary in Rio de Janeiro, on June 14, 1992.  This document will be
          further edited, translated into the official languages, and published by the
          United Nations for the General Assembly this autumn.





                                                   ........../2

                        PROGRAMME AREA

Basis for action

24.1.  The international community has endorsed several plans 
of action and conventions for the full, equal and beneficial 
integration of women in all development activities, in 
particular the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the 
Advancement of Women, 1/ which emphasize women's participation 
in national and international ecosystem management and control 
of environment degradation.  Several conventions, including the 
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination 
against Women (General Assembly resolution 34/180, annex) and 
conventions of ILO and UNESCO have also been adopted to end 
gender-based discrimination and ensure women access to land and 
other resources, education and safe and equal employment.  Also 
relevant are the 1990 World Declaration on the Survival, 
Protection and Development of Children and its Plan of Action 
(A/45/625, annex).  Effective implementation of these 
programmes will depend on the active involvement of women in 
economic and political decision-making and will be critical to 
the successful implementation of Agenda 21.

Objectives

24.2.  The following objectives are proposed for national Governments:

     (a)  To implement the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies 
for the Advancement of Women, particularly with regard to 
women's participation in national ecosystem management and 
control of environment degradation;

     (b)  To increase the proportion of women decision makers, 
planners, technical advisers, managers and extension workers in 
environment and development fields;

     (c)  To consider developing and issuing by the year 2000 a 
strategy of changes necessary to eliminate constitutional, 
legal, administrative, cultural, behavioural, social and 
economic obstacles to women's full participation in sustainable 
development and in public life;

     (d)  To establish by the year 1995 mechanisms at the 
national, regional and international levels to assess the 
implementation and impact of development and environment 
policies and programmes on women and to ensure their 
contributions and benefits;

     (e)  To assess, review, revise and implement, where 
appropriate, curricula and other educational material, with a 
view to promoting the dissemination to both men and women of 
gender-relevant knowledge and valuation of women's roles 
through formal and non-formal education, as well as through 
training institutions, in collaboration with non-governmental organizations;

     (f)  To formulate and implement clear governmental 
policies and national guidelines, strategies and plans for the 
achievement of equality in all aspects of society, including 
the promotion of women's literacy, education, training, 
nutrition and health and their participation in key 
decision-making positions and in management of the environment, 
particularly as it pertains to their access to resources, by 
facilitating better access to all forms of credit, particularly 
in the informal sector, taking measures towards ensuring 
women's access to property rights as well as agricultural 
inputs and implements;


     (g)  To implement, as a matter of urgency, in accordance 
with country-specific conditions, measures to ensure that women 
and men have the same right to decide freely and responsibly 
the number and spacing of their children and have access to 
information, education and means, as appropriate, to enable 
them to exercise this right in keeping with their freedom, 
dignity and personally held values;

     (h)  To consider adopting, strengthening and enforcing 
legislation prohibiting violence against women and to take all 
necessary administrative, social and educational measures to 
eliminate violence against women in all its forms.

Activities

24.3.  Governments should take active steps to implement the following:

     (a)  Measures to review policies and establish plans to 
increase the proportion of women involved as decision makers, 
planners, managers, scientists and technical advisers in the 
design, development and implementation of policies and 
programmes for sustainable development;

     (b)  Measures to strengthen and empower women's bureaux, 
women's non-governmental organizations and women's groups in 
enhancing capacity-building for sustainable development;

     (c)  Measures to eliminate illiteracy among females and to 
expand the enrolment of women and girls in educational 
institutions, to promote the goal of universal access to 
primary and secondary education for girl children and for 
women, and to increase educational and training opportunities 
for women and girls in sciences and technology, particularly at 
the post-secondary level;

     (d)  Programmes to promote the reduction of the heavy 
workload of women and girl children at home and outside through 
the establishment of more and affordable nurseries and 
kindergartens by Governments, local authorities, employers and 
other relevant organizations and the sharing of household tasks 
by men and women on an equal basis, and to promote the 
provision of environmentally sound technologies which have been 
designed, developed and improved in consultation with women, 
accessible and clean water, an efficient fuel supply and 
adequate sanitation facilities;

     (e)  Programmes to establish and strengthen preventive and 
curative health facilities, which include women-centred, 
women-managed, safe and effective reproductive health care and 
affordable, accessible, responsible planning of family size and 
services, as appropriate, in keeping with freedom, dignity and 
personally held values.  Programmes should focus on providing 
comprehensive health care, including pre-natal care, education 
and information on health and responsible parenthood, and 
should provide the opportunity for all women to fully 
breastfeed at least during the first four months post-partum. 
Programmes should fully support women's productive and 
reproductive roles and well-being and should pay special 
attention to the need to provide equal and improved health care 
for all children and to reduce the risk of maternal and child 
mortality and sickness;

     (f)  Programmes to support and strengthen equal employment 
opportunities and equitable remuneration for women in the 
formal and informal sectors with adequate economic, political 
and social support systems and services, including child care, 
particularly day-care facilities and parental leave, and equal 
access to credit, land and other natural resources;

     (g)  Programmes to establish rural banking systems with a 
view to facilitating and increasing rural women's access to 
credit and to agricultural inputs and implements;

     (h)  Programmes to develop consumer awareness and the 
active participation of women, emphasizing their crucial role 
in achieving changes necessary to reduce or eliminate 
unsustainable patterns of consumption and production, 
particularly in industrialized countries, in order to encourage 
investment in environmentally sound productive activities and 
induce environmentally and socially friendly industrial development;

     (i)  Programmes to eliminate persistent negative images, 
stereotypes, attitudes and prejudices against women through 
changes in socialization patterns, the media, advertising, and 
formal and non-formal education;

     (j)  Measures to review progress made in these areas, 
including the preparation of a review and appraisal report 
which includes recommendations to be submitted to the 1995 
world conference on women.

24.4.  Governments are urged to ratify all relevant conventions 
pertaining to women if they have not already done so.  Those 
that have ratified conventions should enforce and establish 
legal, constitutional and administrative procedures to 
transform agreed rights into domestic legislation and should 
adopt measures to implement them in order to strengthen the 
legal capacity of women for full and equal participation in 
issues and decisions on sustainable development.

24.5.  States parties to the Convention on the Elimination of 
All Forms of Discrimination against Women should review and 
suggest amendments to it by the year 2000, with a view to 
strengthening those elements of the Convention related to 
environment and development, giving special attention to the 
issue of access and entitlements to natural resources, 
technology, creative banking facilities and low-cost housing, 
and the control of pollution and toxicity in the home and 
workplace.  States parties should also clarify the extent of 
the Convention's scope with respect to the issues of 
environment and development and request the Committee on the 
Elimination of Discrimination against Women to develop 
guidelines regarding the nature of reporting such issues, 
required under particular articles of the Convention. 

(a)  Areas requiring urgent action

24.6.  Countries should take urgent measures to avert the 
ongoing rapid environmental and economic degradation in 
developing countries that generally affects the lives of women 
and children in rural areas suffering drought, desertification 
and deforestation, armed hostilities, natural disasters, toxic 
waste and the aftermath of the use of unsuitable agro-chemical products. 

24.7.  In order to reach these goals, women should be fully 
involved in decision-making and in the implementation of 
sustainable development activities. 

(b)  Research, data collection and dissemination of information

24.8.  Countries should develop gender-sensitive databases, 
information systems and participatory action-oriented research 
and policy analyses with the collaboration of academic 
institutions and local women researchers on the following: 

     (a)  Knowledge and experience on the part of women of the 
management and conservation of natural resources for 
incorporation in the databases and information systems for 
sustainable development; 

     (b)  The impact of structural adjustment programmes on 
women.  In research done on structural adjustment programmes, 
special attention should be given to the differential impact of 
those programmes on women, especially in terms of cut-backs in 
social services, education and health and in the removal of 
subsidies on food and fuel;

     (c)  The impact on women of environmental degradation, 
particularly drought, desertification, toxic chemicals and 
armed hostilities; 

     (d)  Analysis of the structural linkages between gender 
relations, environment and development;

     (e)  The integration of the value of unpaid work, 
including work that is currently designated "domestic", in 
resource accounting mechanisms in order better to represent the 
true value of the contribution of women to the economy, using 
revised guidelines for the United Nations System of National 
Accounts, to be issued in 1993;

     (f)  Measures to develop and include environmental, social 
and gender impact analyses as an essential step in the 
development and monitoring of programmes and policies; 

     (g)  Programmes to create rural and urban training, 
research and resource centres in developing and developed 
countries that will serve to disseminate environmentally sound 
technologies to women. 

(c)  International and regional cooperation and coordination

24.9.  The Secretary-General of the United Nations should 
review the adequacy of all United Nations institutions, 
including those with a special focus on the role of women, in 
meeting development and environment objectives, and make 
recommendations for strengthening their capacities.  
Institutions that require special attention in this area 
include the Division for the Advancement of Women (Centre for 
Social Development and Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations 
Office at Vienna), the United Nations Development Fund for 
Women (UNIFEM), the International Research and Training 
Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW) and the 
women's programmes of regional commissions.  The review should 
consider how the environment and development programmes of each 
body of the United Nations system could be strengthened to 
implement Agenda 21 and how to incorporate the role of women in 
programmes and decisions related to sustainable development. 

24.10.  Each body of the United Nations system should review 
the number of women in senior policy-level and decision-making 
posts and, where appropriate, adopt programmes to increase that 
number, in accordance with Economic and Social Council 
resolution 1991/17 on the improvement of the status of women in 
the Secretariat. 

24.11.  UNIFEM should establish regular consultations with 
donors in collaboration with UNICEF, with a view to promoting 
operational programmes and projects on sustainable development 
that will strengthen the participation of women, especially 
low-income women, in sustainable development and in 
decision-making.  UNDP should establish a women's focal point 
on development and environment in each of its resident 
representative offices to provide information and promote 
exchange of experience and information in these fields.  Bodies 
of the United Nations system, governments and non-governmental 
organizations involved in the follow-up to the Conference and 
the implementation of Agenda 21 should ensure that gender 
considerations are fully integrated into all the policies, 
programmes and activities. 


Means of implementation

     [Finance and cost evaluation* 

24.12.  The UNCED Secretariat has estimated the average total 
annual cost {1993-2000} of implementing the activities of this 
chapter to be about $40 million from the international 
community on grant and concessional terms.  These are 
indicative and order of magnitude estimates only and have not 
been reviewed by governments.  Actual consts and financial 
terms, including any that are non-concessional, will depend 
upon, inter alia, the specific strategies and programmes 
governments decide upon for implementaiton.


                             Notes

     1/   Report of the World Conference to Review and Appraise 
the Achievements of the United Nations Decade for Women:  
Equality, Development and Peace, Nairobi, 15-26 July 1985 
(United Nations publication, Sales No. E.85.IV.10), chap. I, 
sect. A. 







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