Follow-Up to the 4th World Conference on Women and Full Implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action

A/RES/53/120View PDF

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 104 Implementation of the outcome of the 4th World Conference on Women, published in 1999.

What other versions does this mandate have?

5 versions · 1996–2000

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/54/141

Year	Symbol	Title	Word length	Text similarity
2000	A/RES/54/141	Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action	1,119	21%Compare
1999	A/RES/53/120	Follow-up to the 4th World Conference on Women and full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action	3,045	14%Compare
1998	A/RES/52/231	Follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women and full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action	1,000	13%Compare
1998	A/RES/52/100	Follow-up to the 4th World Conference on Women and full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action	3,337	20%Compare
1996	A/RES/50/203	Follow-up to the 4th World Conference on Women and full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action	2,416	–

What subjects does this mandate have?

15 subjects

Declarations Evaluation Gender Equality Gender Mainstreaming Institution Building Institutional Machinery Non-Governmental Organizations Operational Activities Popular Participation Programme Planning Programmes of Action Questionnaires Resources Mobilization Social Statistics Women's Advancement

What’s in this document?

48 operative paragraphs

Takes note with appreciation of the report of the Secretary-General on the implementation of the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women;⁶

⁶A/53/308.

Welcomes the initiatives and actions taken by Governments, the United Nations system and other international organizations, including their secretariats, as well as by non-governmental organizations and other actors of civil society, towards the implementation of the Beijing Declaration1 and the Platform for Action2 adopted by the Conference, and calls upon them to implement effectively all the critical areas of concern of the Platform for Action;

Calls once again upon States, the United Nations system and all other actors to implement the Platform for Action, in particular by promoting an active and visible policy of mainstreaming a gender perspective at all levels, including in the design, monitoring and evaluation of all policies and programmes to ensure effective implementation of all critical areas of concern in the Platform for Action;

Stresses that Governments have the primary responsibility for implementing the Platform for Action, and reaffirms that Governments should continue to commit themselves at the highest political level to its implementation and should take a leading role in coordinating, monitoring and assessing progress in the advancement of women;

Welcomes the progress achieved, calls for further intensified efforts at the international level to integrate the equal status and all human rights of women into the mainstream of United Nations system-wide activity and to address those issues regularly and systematically throughout relevant United Nations bodies and mechanisms, and welcomes, in this context, Economic and Social Council agreed conclusions 1998/2 of 28 July 1998⁷ on the coordinated follow-up to and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights, held at Vienna from 14 to 25 June 1993;⁸

⁷Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-third Session, Supplement No. 3 and corrigendum (A/53/3 and Corr.1), chap. VI, para. 3.

⁸A/CONF.157/24 (Part I), chap. III.

Also welcomes the steps already taken by the Secretary-General to draw the attention of all senior managers in the United Nations system to Economic and Social Council agreed conclusions 1997/2 and resolution 1998/43 on mainstreaming the gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system, and urges the Secretary-General to intensify his efforts to ensure that managers are held accountable for gender mainstreaming in their areas of responsibility and that gender mainstreaming is systematically integrated into the reform process of the United Nations, including the work of the executive committees;

Directs all its committees and bodies, and draws the attention of other bodies of the United Nations system to the need to mainstream a gender perspective systematically into all areas of their work, in particular in such areas as macroeconomic questions, operational activities for development, poverty eradication, human rights, humanitarian assistance, budgeting, disarmament, peace and security and legal and political matters;

Requests all bodies that deal with programme and budgetary matters, including the Committee for Programme and Coordination and the governing bodies of the United Nations funds and programmes, to ensure that all programmes, medium-term plans and, in particular, programme budgets visibly mainstream a gender perspective;

Reiterates the request of the Economic and Social Council to the Secretariat to present issues and approaches in a gender-sensitive manner when preparing reports, so as to provide the intergovernmental machinery with an analytical basis for gender-responsive policy formulation;

Requests the Economic and Social Council to ensure that gender mainstreaming is an integral part of all its activities concerning integrated follow-up to recent United Nations conferences, building upon its agreed conclusions 1997/2 and its resolution 1998/43;

Re-emphasizes the need for the United Nations system to strengthen the role of gender units and gender focal points;

Urges Governments that have not yet done so to establish or strengthen appropriate national machineries for the advancement of women at the highest political level, including by making appropriate budgetary allocations to ensure their effective operation, appropriate intra- and inter-ministerial procedures and staffing and other institutions with the mandate and capacity to promote women’s participation and integrate gender analysis into policies and programmes;

Notes with appreciation that many Governments have developed national strategies and action plans, some of them in consultation with non-governmental organizations, and urges all Governments that have not yet done so to complete their national action plans as soon as possible, but no later than June 1999, and to submit these plans to the Secretariat;

Encourages Governments to submit responses to the questionnaire prepared by the Secretariat in consultation with the regional commissions, which, together with the national action plans, are an essential contribution to the special session of the General Assembly;

Reiterates its invitation to Governments to prepare national evaluations of the implementation of the Platform for Action with the involvement of civil society;

Recognizes the importance attached to the regional and subregional monitoring of the global and regional platforms for action by regional commissions and other subregional or regional structures, within their mandates, in consultation with Governments, and calls for the promotion of cooperation in that respect among Governments and, where appropriate, national machineries of the same region;

Calls upon States to take action to fulfil the commitments for the advancement of women and for the strengthening of international cooperation made at the Fourth World Conference on Women, and reaffirms that adequate financial resources should be committed at the international level for the implementation of the Platform for Action in developing countries, in particular those in Africa and the least developed countries;

Invites the Secretary-General, in the implementation of the United Nations System-wide Special Initiative on Africa, to pay special attention to the needs and role of women as actors and beneficiaries in the development process;

Reaffirms that, in order to implement the Platform for Action, adequate mobilization of resources at the national and international levels, as well as new and additional resources for the developing countries, in particular those in Africa and the least developed countries, from all available funding mechanisms, including multilateral, bilateral and private sources for the advancement of women, will also be required;

Recognizes that implementation of the Platform for Action in the countries with economies in transition requires continued national efforts and international cooperation and assistance, as indicated in the Platform for Action;

Reaffirms that, in order to implement the Platform for Action, a reformulation of policies and reallocation of resources may be needed, but that some policy changes may not necessarily have financial implications;

Calls upon Member States to allocate sufficient resources for the provision of data disaggregated by sex and age for undertaking gender impact analyses in order to develop successful national implementation strategies for the Platform for Action;

Stresses that full and effective implementation of the Platform for Action will require a political commitment to making available human and financial resources for the empowerment of women, the integration of a gender perspective in budgetary decisions on policies and programmes and adequate financing of specific programmes for securing equality between women and men;

Invites Member States to encourage non-governmental organizations, the private sector and other institutions to mobilize additional resources to facilitate the full implementation of the Platform for Action in order to achieve gender equality;

Recognizes that the creation of an enabling environment at the national and international levels is necessary to ensure the full participation of women in economic activities, and calls upon States to remove obstacles to the full implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action;

Again calls upon Member States to commit themselves to achieving gender balance by, inter alia, aiming at gender balance in the composition of delegations to the United Nations and other international forums, and by presenting, promoting and appointing women candidates in all government-appointed committees, boards and other relevant official bodies, as well as in all international bodies, institutions and organizations;

Reiterates its request to the Secretary-General to ensure that the Division for the Advancement of Women of the Secretariat can carry out effectively all the tasks foreseen for it in the Platform for Action, play a catalytic role in support of gender mainstreaming, including through policy advisory services at the request of Governments, in cooperation with other bodies of the United Nations system, and serve as the secretariat for the special session of the General Assembly by, inter alia, providing sufficient human and financial resources within the regular budget of the United Nations;

Notes with appreciation the work done by the Special Adviser on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, inter alia, in her role as the Chairperson of the Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality, towards the system-wide implementation of the Platform for Action and gender mainstreaming and towards the achievement of gender balance in the Secretariat and system-wide, and, in that regard, stresses the importance of increasing human and financial resources from all available funding sources;

Takes note of the statement of the Administrative Committee on Coordination on gender equality and mainstreaming in the work of the United Nations system: a commitment for action, adopted by the Committee in March 1998,⁹ in which gender equality was established as a strategic objective of the international community and of the organizations of the United Nations system;

⁹ACC/1998/4, para. 63.

Encourages the Inter-Agency Committee on Women and Gender Equality to continue its cooperation with the subsidiary bodies of the Administrative Committee on Coordination to develop strategies, tools and methodologies, such as gender-sensitive budgeting, to enhance the implementation and monitoring of the Platform for Action and gender mainstreaming in the United Nations system;

Requests the Secretary-General, in keeping with Economic and Social Council resolution 1998/26, to ensure that a gender perspective is integral to all operational activities, is fully integrated into the triennial comprehensive policy review of those activities and that resident coordinators, in the execution of their mandates, fully incorporate a gender perspective, in particular into the coordinated follow-up to recent global United Nations conferences, utilizing fully all the expertise available in the United Nations system;

Invites States parties to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women¹⁰ to include information in their reports on measures taken to implement the Platform for Action;

¹⁰Resolution 34/180, annex.

Notes the importance of the activities undertaken by the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women in the implementation of the Platform for Action, and encourages the strengthening of their cooperation and coordination within their respective mandates;

Encourages international financial institutions to continue to review and revise policies, procedures and staffing to ensure that investments and programmes benefit women, and invites the Secretary-General to include information on any such steps in his annual report on follow-up to the Fourth World Conference on Women, to be submitted to the General Assembly at its fifty-fourth session;

Invites the World Trade Organization to contribute to the implementation of the Platform for Action, including through activities in cooperation with the United Nations system;

Reiterates that the special session, which will take place from 5 to 9 June 2000, should review and appraise progress in implementation, focusing on examples of good practices, positive actions, lessons learned, obstacles and key challenges remaining, and identify further actions and initiatives for achieving gender equality in the next millennium;

Decides that the special session shall be entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”;

Encourages appropriate regional preparatory activities for the special session, inter alia, by Governments in cooperation with the regional commissions, and recommends the submission of the results as an input to the Commission on the Status of Women at its forty-fourth session, in 2000;

Invites the Commission acting as the preparatory committee for the special session to propose the agenda (structure and themes) and documentation for the special session, taking into account resolution 52/231, and, at its forty-third session, to focus in particular on the report requested on suggestions for further actions and initiatives that might be considered during the review in order to achieve gender equality, with attention to mainstreaming a gender perspective and to common trends and themes across the twelve critical areas of concern;

Reiterates its request to the Secretary-General to submit to the Commission at its forty-third session a report on suggestions for further actions and initiatives;

Requests the Secretary-General to provide by the end of 1999 a compilation of updated statistics and indicators on the situation of women and girls, including older women and those with special needs, in countries around the world, including by issuing a new volume of The World’s Women;

Reiterates that participation in the special session should be at a high political level;

Emphasizes the important role of non-governmental organizations in implementing the Platform for Action and the need for their active involvement in the preparations for the special session, as well as the need to ensure appropriate arrangements for their contributions to the special session;

Recalls the interim measures put forward by the Economic and Social Council in its decision 1997/298 of 23 July 1997 for the participation of non-governmental organizations in the work of the Commission on the Status of Women with a view to their application for the forty-third session, and recommends that the Council extend their application to the forty-third session of the Commission;

Invites the Commission, meeting as the preparatory committee for the special session, in March 1999, to recommend to the General Assembly appropriate arrangements for the involvement and participation of non-governmental organizations in the special session;

Recommends to the Economic and Social Council to decide that, in the absence of a recommendation from the Commission at its first meeting as the preparatory committee for the special session, in 1998, the non-governmental organizations in consultative status with the Council, as well as the non-governmental organizations that participated in the Fourth World Conference on Women whose applications for consultative status with the Council are still under consideration, may participate in the sessions of the Commission meeting as the preparatory committee, in 1999 and 2000;

Requests the Secretary-General to report annually to the General Assembly, the Commission on the Status of Women and the Economic and Social Council on follow-up to and progress in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and the Platform for Action;

Decides to appraise the progress on this question on an annual basis and to retain on the agenda of its forthcoming sessions the item entitled “Implementation of the outcome of the Fourth World Conference on Women”.

Who adopted this document and its mandates?

What other versions does this mandate have?

What subjects does this mandate have?

What’s in this document?

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