6. Recommends that Member States, the competent bodies of the United Nations and the specialized agencies should carry out, within the framework of their existing programmes, special studies on the situation of women, in particular the aged or handicapped, and, in particular, on the most appropriate means of protecting them from the risks associated with their condition and on the most effective measures for achieving their reintegration into socially active life; 7. Urges Governments to provide social and rehabilitation services for physically, mentally or economically handicapped women of all ages. 14. Research for the formulation of policies concerning The World Conference of the International Women's Year, Fecalling General Assembly resolution 2761 (XXV), calling for a programme of concentrated international action for the advancement of women, in order to achieve certain objectives and targets in the Second United Nations Development Decade, Mindful of the growing international awareness that development is not limited to economic growth but is a complex social progress towards well-being and equity, Conscious of the fact that development research has been focused almost exclusively on the economic and technology aspects of development, Conscious also of the fact that women's activities have received insufficient attention in development research, Noting therefore the lack of both quantitative and qualitative data on the position of women and their role in different areas of activity, which data are needed for the formulation of adequate policies to promote the integration of women in the total development process, in developed as well as in developing countries, 1. Requests the Secretary-General of the United Nations, in close consultation with the appropriate agencies and institutions within the United Nations system, to establish a system-wide United Nations research programme on the position and role of women in development in order to obtain quantitative and qualitative data needed for the formulation of policies to promote the full integration of women in development in the various regions of the world; 2. Requests the Secretary-General of the United Nations therefore: (a) To report on the ongoing research within the United Nations system, both at the regional and the national level, on the role and the position of women in development; (b) To report to the Economic and Social Council at its sixtieth session on the ways and means in which the proposed research programme can be organized and financed within the institutional framework of the United Nations; (c) To provide, within the existing United Nations organs, for the dissemination of information on the status of research on the position and role of women in development. 15. Family planning and the full integration of women in development The World Conference of the International Women's Year, Considering that the full integration of women in development cannot be achieved without improvement in health, education and training for employment, Recognizing the necessity, in the process of integrating women in development, of providing women with the information and means to enable them to determine the number and spacing of their children, Noting that the findings of the Special Rapporteur on the Interrelationship of the Status of Women and Family Planning, as endorsed by the Commission on the Status of Women and the Economic and Social Council, stressed the interrelationship between the promotion of family planning and social welfare and the role and status of women in the context, inter alia, of national development, Recognizing also that the importance of the over-all development process, the status and role of women, and population factors were explicitly recognized by the seminars held in the regions of Africa and of Asia and the Pacific on the subject of the integration of women in development with special reference to population factors, Aware that women in many parts of the world are demanding access to advice on family health services and the spacing of their children and that lack of access to such services has caused hardship and suffering to women and their families and has given rise to substantial social cost, including the adverse effect it has on the health of the woman and her child, Considering that the expansion of the activities of the organizations of the United Nations family in the form of projects that benefit women and ventures designed to remedy the situation of disadvantaged groups would benefit women all over the world, expecially those in the poorest countries, Endorsing the view that population is but one factor in the development process and must therefore be considered equally with other economic, social and environmental factors, 1. Calls on Governments, the specialized agencies and the organizations within the United Nations system to implement the World Population Plan of Action; 2. Calls on Governments consistent with their national policy as far as possible: (a) To provide adequate facilities for formal and non-formal education for women and girls, especially those in rural areas, to ensure that full advantage shall be taken of family health services; (b) To make available to nursing mothers and their children the necessary health services within easy reach, coupled with programmes of education in maternal health and child welfare as an integral part of health programmes; (c) To make available to all persons the necessary information and advice and adequate facilities and services within easy reach to enable women who so desire to decide on the number and spacing of their children, and, furthermore, to prepare young people for responsible parenthood; (a) To include women on all boards and policy-making bodies at all levels in relation to the numbers of men, especially in socio-economic development plans and population policies; 3. Requests the Executive Director of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities and the Administrator of the United Nations Fund for International Women's Year to co-ordinate their activities to ensure the optimum utilization of existing resources 4. Requests the Secretary-General to invite the Commission on the Status of Women and the Population Commission to consider measures to achieve the fuller integration of womer in the development process and to submit such recommendations for consideration by the Economic and Social Council at its sixty-second session. 16. Popular participation The World Conference of the International Women's Year, Recognizing that no world plan of action can encompass or deal with all the needs of all the women in the world, and that no national Government without the conscious participation of its citizens can do all that needs to be done to achieve equality among women and men, Bearing in mind that full equality among individuals can be achieved only through equal opportunities and other measures for access to education, economic activity, political participation and participation in all forms of culture, Considering that voluntary work performed by national groups is demonstrating the benefits of this mechanism for strengthening local values and for the development of the community, Convinced that women themselves must organize together in groups to help themselves achieve the goals of equality, development and peace, Further recognizing that when individuals gather together in groups, they gain experience, confidence and a sense of their own dignity and personal worth, Affirming that development requires solidarity and that in that effort women and men must have equal opportunities and duties of participation, 1. Recommends to Member States that they sponsor voluntary social promotion programmes, such as self-help groups, co-operatives, women's groups and other organizations at all socio-economic levels as an integral part of general local self-help popular projects or programmes aimed at national, economic and social development; 2. Recommends that the voluntary social movement should be composed of nationals and permanent residents of the countries in question and should respond to the social conscience of the respective countries; 3. Recognizes that the participation of women in voluntary services such as self-help groups and co-operative women's groups must have as the basic objective the initial incorporation of such women in productive and socially useful activities in order to improve the living conditions of women and those of their families and communities and further ensure their effective and non-discriminatory integration in the development process. 17. The family The World Conference of the International Women's Year, Aware that the family is the primary and fundamental nucleus of society and fulfils its mission in an organized community, Bearing in mind that it is the fundamental institution of natural origin, distinguished by its character as a community of unity, love and life, which forms its members in their individuality and serves as the first school of social relations, Realizing that the family should be the place in which the cultural heritage of the past is transmitted and renewed in the interests of attaining the ideals of equality and freedom, peace and international justice, Recognizing that it ensures the full protection of those of its members who are in the process of "formation", children and young people, and makes itself responsible for giving preferential attention to the elderly, in recognition of their contributions and experience, both present and past, Noting that man and woman form two aspects of the same vital essence and, united, make human life possible, 1. Urges States to treat the family as an object of special protection and to recognize its rights with respect to its formation and its defence, establishing the legal equality of the spouses; 2. Recommends that States should guarantee the freedom of individuals and couples freely to decide the number and spacing of their children within the context of the national sovereignty of each country and of the interrelationship between that national sovereignty and social and economic factors; 3. Suggests to States that urbanization policies should be aimed at creating an atmosphere conducive to the strengthening of family ties and that community services should be aimed at the different generations in the family nucleus, thus helping to create true family communities; 4. Expresses the hope that States will recognize the family as one of the most important nuclei of society in the conviction that the members of the family, considered individually, cannot develop fully if their natural context, the family, is lost sight of; 5. Recommends that the family should be encouraged to play an active role by the granting to it of the right of direct participation in the work of bodies concerned with education and social services. 18. Political and social participation The World Conference of the International Women's Year, Recognizing the increasingly important role of women in building more just national societies, and in the struggle for fundamental national rights and selfdetermination of peoples and against wars of aggression, in establishing a new international economic order and in strengthening peace and security and disarmament, Convinced that the participation of women as agents of national and international economic, social and political change is fundamental in the sense that the woman has a specific role to play, and declaring that the recognition of this participation is not a gratuitous concession on the part of the international community but an act of justice owed to women by virtue of their valuable contribution to the development of humanity throughout history, Aware that although women constitute half the population, their situation in the greater part of the world is that of the exploited in relation to that of men and that this inequality is founded both on unjust economic and social orders and on cultural values constituting behaviour patterns which continue to under-estimate the role of women in spite of economic, social and technological advances, Convinced that inter alia colonialism, racism, apartheid, alien domination, racial discrimination, acquisition of land by force and the armaments race impede the active participation of women as well as of men in all fields of endeavour, Recognizing that impeding the economic, social and political participation of women is contrary to the instruments of the United Nations concerning human rights, Convinced also that it is necessary to undertake far-reaching transformations in the socio-economic and political-cultural structures that prevent the revaluation of women and their active and mass political, economic and social participation, Considering that governments and national, regional and international organizations must take continuing, decisive and effective action in this connexion, 1. Requests that governments should consider the rights of women as an eminently political one requiring urgent and concrete solutions; 2. Further requests governments, where appropriate, to undertake structural reforms in the economic, social, political and cultural fields that will make it possible to combine economic development with social transformation and will create conditions for the free personal and social development of women and their full and mass participation as equal partners with men in the process of national transformation, thus generating the integrated development of society as a whole; 3. Recommends to governments where appropriate: (a) That they should establish national commissions and, where such commissions exist, empower them to serve as ombudsman, institutions or mechanisms at the highest political level where appropriate and in a manner to be determined by governments in order to ensure the active participation of women in structural reforms and the achievement of economic and social development and international peace; (b) That such national commissions, institutions or mechanisms should also promote policies and strategies designed to bring about institutional changes and changes in values and attitudes in both men and women in order to achieve the equality, integration and mass participation of the latter in all economic, social, political and cultural institutions of society as well as at all the decision-making levels of the State; (c) That the commissions, institutions or high-level national mechanisms to be established or strengthened should report periodically, through appropriate channels, or at least once a year, regarding the national progress made in respect to women's participation in all aspects of social activity, to the United Nations when they deem |