23 July 1986

38th plenary meeting

Updating of the world survey on the role of women in development

The Economic and Social Council,

Considering that the General Assembly, in its resolution 40/204 of 17 December 1985, invited the Commission on the Status of Women at its thirty-first session to suggest terms of reference for the first update of the world survey on the role of women in development, which is to be submitted to the Assembly at its forty-fourth session in 1989,

Emphasizing the need to update the multidisciplinary and multisectoral survey on the integration of women in development,

Aware that the majority of the developing countries are at present suffering from a serious financial, economic and social crisis and that their precarious situation is leading to deterioration in the condition of broad groups of the population, particularly women,

Bearing in mind that the problems of the developing countries caused by the critical situation are aggravated by increasing external debt, deterioration in the terms of trade, protectionism, and other measures that affect their exports,

Conscious of the urgent need to study and to propose alternative courses of action to face the critical situation at minimum cost to the well-being of women,

Emphasizing the interrelationship between the preparations for updating the survey and the implementation of the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, including inter alia, the system-wide medium-term plan for women and development,

1. Requests the Secretary-General to submit to the Commission on the Status of Women at its 1988 session a first draft of the updated world survey on the role of women in development, taking into account the integrity of the three themes of the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women, namely, equality, development and peace;

2. Recommends the Secretary-General, in preparing the update of the survey and in linking it closely to the Nairobi Forward-looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women:

(a) To analyse the impact on women of the adjustment policies resulting from financial indebtedness, deterioration in the terms of trade, protectionism, and other measures that affect exports from developing countries and resource flows to those countries;

(b) To identify and assess the effectiveness and efficiency of selected innovative policies to promote women's integration into the economy, in particular to draw conclusions regarding any changes in the data in the light of such policies;

(c) To include other emerging development trends, to be identified in consultation with the specialized agencies and other organizations of the United Nations co-operating in this effort, in particular to focus on one or two areas where women are most disadvantaged or most prominent in the work-force, such as the informal sector, agriculture and food production, including livestock raising, and issues relating to women and population;

(d) To examine the impact of the reduction in spending on programmes for the advancement of women in those countries where such reduction has taken place, particularly in the fields of health, education and housing;

3. Requests the Secretary-General to make all efforts, through the Statistical Office of the Department of International Economic and Social Affairs and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women in co-operation with the specialized agencies and other organizations of the United Nations, to improve the availability and reliability of data on women in the economy, including the informal sector, for the updated survey, bearing in mind the need for standardization of data and consistency between chapters of the updated survey;

4. Requests all the specialized agencies and other organizations of the United Nations system, including all the regional commissions and the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, to co-operate in the preparation of the first update of the survey;

5. Further requests the Secretary-General to pay attention to the concrete implications for action of the survey and the updates by disseminating the results, especially to national machineries by way of information notes and training seminars;

6. Recommends that the first update of the survey should be submitted, through the Economic and Social Council, to the General Assembly at its forty-fourth session and to the Commission on the Status of Women in 1990;

7. Requests the Secretary-General, in the preparation of the updates, to draw as far as possible on existing and already planned studies.