Women in development A/RES/72/234 Declaration on Nutrition and the Framework for Action 16 and the importance of the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016–2025), and reaffirms the commitment to devote resources to developing rural areas and sustainable agriculture and fisheries and supporting smallholder farmers, especially women farmers, herders and fishers in developing countries, particularly the least developed countries; 14. Stresses the need to take action to prevent and eliminate all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls, including in the world of work, through the strengthening of institutional mechanisms and legal frameworks, given that violence and discrimination, including multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, against women and girls in private and public spaces are a major impediment to the achievement of the empowerment of women and girls and their social and economic development that no country has managed to eliminate, and encourages the adoption of specific preventive measures to protect women and girls, youth and children from violence, abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, exploitation, harassment, trafficking in persons and harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation, taking into account the need to addre ss negative social norms, structural barriers and gender stereotypes that affect women in the world of work and to develop measures to promote the re -entry of victims and survivors of violence into the labour market; 15. Recognizes that investment in health contributes to reducing inequality and increasing sustainable and inclusive economic growth and to social development, environmental protection and the eradication of poverty, hunger and malnutrition, and urges Governments to provide equal access to adequate health-care services for women and girls in order to achieve the realization of the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; 16. Also recognizes that achieving the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, through, inter alia, equitable and universal access to affordable and quality health-care services and preventive health-care information, including in the area of sexual and reproductive health, is critical to women ’s economic advancement and empowerment, that a lack of economic empowerment and independence increases women’s vulnerability to a range of negative consequences, including violence and the risk of contracting HIV and AIDS, and that the neglect of women’s full enjoyment of human rights severely limits their opportunities in public and private life, including the opportunities for receiving an education and for achieving economic and political empowerment; 17. Expresses deep concern, that, globally, women and girls are still the most affected by the HIV and AIDS epidemic, that they bear a disproportionate share of the caregiving burden and that they are more vulnerable to violence, stigmatization, discrimination, poverty and marginalization from their families and communit ies as a result of the epidemic, notes that progress towards gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls has been unacceptably slow and that the ability of women and girls to protect themselves from HIV continues to be compromised by physiological factors, gender inequalities, including unequal power relations in society between women and men and boys and girls, and unequal legal, economic and social status, insufficient access to health-care services, including sexual and reproductive health, and multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and violence in the public and private spheres, including trafficking in persons, sexual violence, exploitation and harmful practices, and calls upon Governments and the international community to urgently scale up responses towards achieving the goal of __________________ 16 17-23312 World Health Organization, document EB136/8, annexes I and II. 7/15