This data access service is provided by the Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), which operates the Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC) for the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

                                             Distr.
                                             GENERAL

                                             A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. III)
                                             14 August 1992

                                             ORIGINAL:  ENGLISH



             REPORT OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON 
                     ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT

                  (Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June 1992)


                             Chapter 24

             GLOBAL ACTION FOR WOMEN TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE
                      AND EQUITABLE DEVELOPMENT


                           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 the Plan of Action for implementing the Declaration
(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

     Financing and cost evaluation

24.12.  The Conference 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 or
concessional terms.  These are indicative and order-of-magnitude
estimates only and have not been reviewed by Governments.  Actual costs
and financial terms, including any that are non-concessional, will
depend upon, inter alia, the specific strategies and programmes
Governments decide upon for implementation.


                                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.

END OF CHAPTER 24