A/RES/60/138 (a) Creating an enabling environment for improving the situation of rural women and ensuring attention to their needs and contributions, including through enhanced cooperation and a gender perspective, and their full participation in the development, implementation and monitoring of macroeconomic policies and programmes and poverty reduction strategies, including poverty reduction strategy papers, based on the Millennium Development Goals; (b) Pursuing the political and socio-economic empowerment of rural women and supporting their full and equal participation in decision-making at all levels, including through affirmative action, where appropriate, and support for women’s organizations, labour unions or other associations and civil society groups promoting rural women’s rights; (c) Integrating a gender perspective into the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of development policies and programmes, including budget policies, paying increased attention to the needs of rural women so as to ensure that they benefit from policies and programmes adopted in all spheres and that the disproportionate number of rural women living in poverty is reduced; (d) Ensuring that the perspectives of rural women are taken into account and that they participate in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of policies and activities related to emergencies, natural disasters, humanitarian assistance, peacebuilding and post-conflict reconstruction; (e) Investing in and strengthening efforts to meet the basic needs of rural women through improved availability, access to and use of critical rural infrastructure, such as energy and transport, capacity-building and human resources development measures and the provision of a safe and reliable water supply and sanitation, nutritional programmes, affordable housing programmes, education and literacy programmes and health and social support measures, including in the area of sexual and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS treatment, care and support; (f) Designing and implementing policies that promote and protect the enjoyment by rural women and girls of all human rights and fundamental freedoms and creating an environment that does not tolerate violations of their rights, including domestic violence, sexual violence and other forms of gender-based violence; (g) Developing specific assistance programmes and advisory services to promote economic skills of rural women in banking, modern trading and financial procedures and providing microcredit and other financial and business services to a greater number of women in rural areas, in particular female-headed households, for their economic empowerment; (h) Considering adopting, where appropriate, national legislation to protect the knowledge, innovations and practices of women in indigenous and local communities relating to traditional medicines, biodiversity and indigenous technologies; (i) Taking steps towards ensuring that women’s unpaid work and contributions to on-farm and off-farm production, including income generated in the informal sector, are visible, and supporting remunerative non-agricultural employment of rural women, improving working conditions and increasing access to productive resources; 3