A/RES/68/227 Women in development 12. Encourages Member States to ensure inclusive and more effective participation of national mechanisms for gender equality and women’s empowerment in the formulation of national development strategies, including strategies aimed at eradicating poverty and reducing inequalities, and calls upon the United Nations system to support national efforts in this regard; 13. Also encourages Member States, as appropriate, to strengthen capacities for gender mainstreaming by allocating adequate financial and human resources to national women’s machineries as well as to and within line ministries, establishing and/or strengthening dedicated units for gender equality and the empowerment of women, providing capacity development for technical staff and developing tools and guidelines; 14. Encourages Member States, the United Nations system and donor countries to strengthen gender-responsive planning and budgeting processes and to develop and strengthen methodologies and tools for this purpose, as well as for the monitoring and evaluation of investments for gender-equality results, as appropriate, and encourages donors to mainstream a gender perspective in their practices, including joint coordination and accountability mechanisms; 15. Encourages Member States to adopt and implement legislation and policies designed to promote the reconciliation of work and family responsibilities, including through increased flexibility in working arrangements, such as part-time work, and the facilitation of breastfeeding for working mothers, to provide care facilities for children and other dependants and to ensure that both women and men have access to maternity or paternity, parental and other forms of leave and are not discriminated against when availing themselves of such benefits; 16. Expresses deep concern about the pervasiveness of violence against women and girls, reiterates the need to further intensify efforts to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls, and recognizes that violence against women and girls is one of the obstacles to the achievement of the objectives of equality, development and peace and that women’s poverty and lack of political, social and economic empowerment, as well as their marginalization, may result from their exclusion from social policies for and the benefits of sustainable development and can place them at increased risk of violence; 17. Encourages Governments, the private sector, non-governmental organizations, trade unions and other stakeholders to promote and protect the rights of women workers, to take action to remove structural and legal barriers to, as well as eliminate stereotypic attitudes towards, gender equality at work and to initiate positive steps towards promoting equal pay for equal work or for work of equal value and women’s full participation in the formal economy, in particular in economic decision-making; 18. Encourages the United Nations system and donor countries to support Member States in increasing their investments in policies and programmes with a gender perspective in order to promote women’s access to decent work and in delivering gender-responsive social protection and social services; 19. Urges Governments to develop, adequately resource and implement active labour-market policies on full and productive employment and decent work for all, including the full participation of women and men in both rural and urban areas; 20. Urges the United Nations system and other international organizations, upon the request of Member States, to support and promote innovative programme responses to ensure women’s access to decent work, to recognize and contribute to reducing the unequal burden of care work, to promote social protection initiatives 6/11