Commission on the Status of Women

 Distr. GENERAL

E/1997/27 CSW - Report of the forty-first session

             C.  Matters brought to the attention of the Council

3.   The attention of the Council is drawn to the text submitted by the
Chairperson of the Commission on the follow-up to agreed conclusions 1996/1
of the Economic and Social Council (see chap. II, para. 178).


                           1.  Agreed conclusions

4.   The following agreed conclusions of the Commission are also brought to
the attention of the Council:


           Agreed conclusions 1997/1.  Women and the environment* 

     1.   The recently held United Nations conferences and summits,
     particularly the Fourth World Conference on Women and the United
     Nations Conference on Environment and Development, have underlined
     that the contribution of women to economic development, social
     development and environmental protection, which are mutually
     reinforcing components of sustainable development, should be
     recognized and supported, and that there is need for a clear gender
     perspective in environmental management.  Moreover, unless the
     contribution of women is recognized and supported, sustainable
     development will be an elusive goal.

     2.   In the five-year review and assessment of the results of the
     United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, moving
     beyond the concept of women as a major group, a major focus should be
     the mainstreaming of a gender perspective into the development and
     implementation of all legislation, policies and programmes, with a
     view to achieving gender equality, taking into account the Beijing
     Platform for Action13/13/ and the results of other global conferences.

     3.   In designing and implementing environmental programmes and
     policies, including those related to the implementation of Agenda
     21,14/ and the Beijing Platform for Action at the national and local
     levels, all responsible actors should ensure that a gender perspective
     is fully integrated into them, through the development and application
     of analytical tools and methodologies for gender-based analysis. 
     Monitoring and accountability mechanisms should be in place to assess
     gender mainstreaming and its impact.

     4.   The Commission on Sustainable Development should mainstream a
     gender perspective into its future work, ensuring that differential
     impacts on women and men of policies and programmes for sustainable
     development are well understood and effectively addressed.

     5.   All responsible actors are requested to adopt a holistic,
     coordinated and collaborative approach to integrating a gender
     perspective into sustainable development, between governmental
     ministries and departments and, at the international level, between
     United Nations agencies, funds and bodies and other international
     entities.

     6.   All responsible actors should support the active participation of
     women on an equal footing with men in sustainable development at all
     levels, including participation in financial and technical decision-
     making through appropriate legislation and/or administrative
     regulations.

     7.   Governments should ensure that policies for the liberalization of
     trade and investment are complemented by effective social and
     environmental policies into which a gender perspective is fully
     integrated, so as to ensure that the benefits of growth are fully
     shared by all sectors of society and to avoid deterioration of the
     environment.

     8.   As consumers, both women and men should be more aware of their
     ability to behave in an environmentally friendly manner through
     measures such as eco-labelling that is understood by consumers
     regardless of age or level of literacy, and local recycling schemes.

     9.   Gender-sensitive research on the impact of environmental
     pollutants and other harmful substances, including the impact on the
     reproductive health of men and women, should be intensified and linked
     with the incidence of female cancers.  The findings should be widely
     disseminated, taking into account the results of research on the
     implementation of national policies and programmes.  However, lack of
     full scientific data should not be a reason for postponing measures
     that can prevent harm to human health.

     10.  The active involvement of women at the national and international
     levels is essential for the development and implementation of policies
     aimed at promoting and protecting the environmental aspects of human
     health, in particular, in setting standards for drinking water, since
     everyone has a right to access to drinking water in quantity and
     quality equal to his or her basic needs.  A gender perspective should
     be included in water resource management which, inter alia, values and
     reinforces the important role that women play in acquiring, conserving
     and using water.  Women should be included in decision-making related
     to waste disposal, improving water and sanitation systems and
     industrial, agricultural and land-use projects that affect water
     quality and quantity.  Women should have access to clean, affordable
     water for their human and economic needs.  A prerequisite is the
     assurance of universal access to safe drinking water and to
     sanitation, and to that end, cooperation at both the national and
     international levels should be encouraged.

     11.  Governments should combat the illegal export of banned and
     hazardous chemicals, including agro-chemicals, in accordance with
     relevant international and regional agreements.  Governments should
     support the negotiation of a legally binding international instrument
     for the application of prior informed consent procedures for certain
     hazardous chemicals and pesticides in international trade.

     12.  Governments, the international community and international
     organizations should ensure a participatory approach to environmental
     protection and conservation at all levels and, in elaborating policies
     and programmes, should recognize that sustainable development is a
     shared responsibility of men and women and should take into account
     both men's and women's productive and reproductive roles.

     13.  All Governments should implement their commitments made in Agenda
     21 and the Beijing Platform for Action, including those in the area of
     financial and technical assistance and the transfer of environmentally
     sound technologies to the developing countries, and should ensure that
     a gender perspective is mainstreamed into all such assistance and
     transfers.

     14.  The international community and United Nations agencies should
     continue to assist developing countries in developing the capacity to
     carry out gender impact assessments and in devising analytical tools
     and gender-sensitive guidelines.  A gender perspective should be
     mainstreamed into all environmental impact assessments.  Governments,
     the private sector and international financial institutions should
     accelerate efforts to carry out gender impact assessments of
     investment decisions.

     15.  Governments, civil society, United Nations agencies and bodies,
     and other international organizations should collect, analyse and
     disseminate data disaggregated by sex and information related to women
     and the environment so as to ensure the integration of gender
     considerations into the development and implementation of sustainable
     development policies and programmes.

     16.  Actors such as the United Nations, international financial
     institutions, Governments and civil society should apply a gender
     perspective in all funding programmes for sustainable development,
     while acknowledging the importance of continuing programming targeted
     at women.  Funds should be shared across sectors.

     17.  Multilateral and bilateral donors, Governments and the private
     sector should increase support to non-governmental organizations,
     particularly to women's organizations, in playing an active role in
     advocacy for the implementation of Agenda 21 at the international and
     national levels, particularly in supporting national policies and
     programmes for sustainable development in the developing countries.

     18.  Such assistance should also be rendered to the countries with
     economies in transition at the bilateral and multilateral levels.

     19.  Governments, educational institutions and non-governmental
     organizations, including women's organizations, should work in
     collaboration to provide information on sound environmental practices,
     support gender-sensitive education and develop specific gender-
     sensitive training programmes in this area.

     20.  All relevant actors should be encouraged to work in partnership
     with adolescent girls and boys, utilizing both formal and non-formal
     educational training activities, inter alia, through sustainable
     consumption patterns and responsible use of natural resources.

     21.  Political parties should be encouraged to incorporate
     environmental goals with a gender dimension into their party
     platforms.

     22.  Governments, in partnership with the private sector and other
     actors of civil society, should strive to eradicate poverty,
     especially the feminization of poverty, to change production and
     consumption patterns and to create sound, well-functioning local
     economies as the basis for sustainable development, inter alia, by
     empowering the local population, especially women.  It is also
     important for women to be involved in urban planning, in the provision
     of basic facilities and communication and transport networks, and in
     policies concerned with safety.  International cooperation should be
     strengthened to achieve this end.

     23.  Women have an essential role to play in the development of
     sustainable and ecologically sound consumption and production patterns
     and approaches to natural resource management.  The knowledge and
     expertise of women, especially of rural women and indigenous women, in
     the use and the protection of natural resources should be recognized,
     consolidated, protected and fully used in the design and
     implementation of policies and programmes for the management of the
     environment.

     24.  Laws should be designed and revised to ensure that women have
     equal access to and control over land, unmediated by male relatives,
     in order to end land rights discrimination.  Women should be accorded
     secure use rights and should be fully represented in the decision-
     making bodies that allocate land and other forms of property, credit,
     information and new technologies.  In the implementation of the
     Beijing Platform for Action, women should be accorded full and equal
     rights to own land and other property inter alia through inheritance. 
     Land reform programmes should begin by acknowledging the equality of
     women's rights to land and take other measures to increase land
     availability to poor women and men.

     25.  Governments should promote the development of ecological tourism
     initiatives in order to promote and facilitate women's entrepreneurial
     activities in this field.

     26.  Education and training of young people on the human rights of
     women should be ensured, and traditional and customary practices that
     are harmful to and discriminate against women should be eliminated.

     27.  Governments, research institutions and the private sector should
     support the role of women in developing environmentally sound
     technologies, such as solar energy, and in influencing the development
     of new and appropriate technologies by ensuring education and training
     in science and technology.

     28.  Governments, the private sector and the international community
     are called upon to give priority attention to the links between
     security, armed conflict and the environment, and their impact on the
     civilian population, in particular women and children.

     29.  Recognizing that gender equality is essential to the achievement
     of sustainable development, the Chairperson of the Commission on the
     Status of Women should bring to the attention of the Chairpersons of
     the Commission on Sustainable Development at its fifth session, and to
     the General Assembly at its special session to review the
     implementation of Agenda 21, the agreed conclusions of the Commission
     on the Status of Women on women and the environment.



    	

Date last updated: 06 December 1999 by DESA/DAW
Copyright © 1999 United Nations