The General Assembly,
Recalling its resolution 44/76 of 8 December 1989, in which
it pointed out that age segregation, in addition to sex stereotyping,
makes the social and economic problems of elderly women even more
acute, and that they are often viewed only as beneficiaries and
not as contributors to development,
Recalling also its resolution 40/30 of 29 November 1985,
in which it emphasized that the elderly must be considered an
important and necessary element in the development process at
all levels within a given society,
Recalling further Commission on the Status of Women resolution
36/4 of 20 March 1992, See Official Records of the Economic and
Social Council, 1992, Supplement No. 4 (E/1992/24), chap. I, sect.
C. in which the Commission emphasized the need to adopt an approach
for the advancement of women that takes into account all stages
of life, so as to identify measures that respond to women's needs,
Calling attention to the urgent need to develop and improve
the publication of statistics by sex and by age, and to identify
and evaluate the different forms of activities of older women
which are not normally recognized as having an economic value,
in particular in the informal sectors,
Taking into consideration the proceedings of the International
Symposium on Population Structure and Development, held at Tokyo
from 10 to 12 September 1987, which called attention to the fact
that the United Nations had estimated that there were 208 million
women aged 60 and above in 1985, of which about half lived in
the developed and half in the developing world, and that by the
year 2025 this number had been projected to increase to 604 million
elderly women for the world as a whole, of which nearly 70 per
cent would be living in the developing countries, See ST/ESA/SER.R/85.
1. Takes note with appreciation of the joint publication
by the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement
of Women and the Statistics Division of the Secretariat of The
Situation of Elderly Women: Available Statistics and Indicators
INSTRAW/SER.B/44. and encourages the Institute and the Division
to continue their pioneering work in this field;
2. Requests the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination
against Women to pay particular attention to discrimination on
grounds of age when evaluating national reports on the implementation
of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women; Resolution 34/180, annex.
3. Invites the competent organs of the United Nations to
adopt an approach that, in all their strategies and programmes
for the advancement of women, takes into account all stages of
life;
4. Invites the international development agencies and organizations,
including the United Nations Development Fund for Women and the
United Nations Development Programme, to take account of the potential
of elderly women as a human resource for development and to include
older women in their development strategies and programmes, and
encourages Governments to ensure the inclusion of women, regardless
of age, in development projects covered by national and multilateral
financial institutions;
5. Invites the Preparatory Committee for the World Summit
for Social Development to ensure that older women's concerns and
contributions to development are considered under the three main
agenda items of the Summit: "Elimination of poverty",
"Social integration" and "Employment";
6. Urges the Commission on the Status of Women, as the
preparatory body for the Fourth World Conference on Women: Action
for Equality, Development and Peace, to ensure that older women's
concerns and contributions to development are recognized and incorporated
into the strategies, programmes and policies of the Platform for
Action which deal with equality, development and peace;
7. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General
Assembly at its fiftieth session on the implementation of the
present resolution under the item entitled "Advancement of
women".
94th plenary meeting
23 December 1994