• Equal rights of women and men, nondiscrimination in the UN Charter, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
• The evolving UN role from the 1940s through the various declarations on the rights of women to the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.
• The translation through subsequent resolutions, declarations, conventions, and recommendations of principles into programs and action, often far in advance of the legal or actual situations in individual countries.
• The pioneering role for women and a frame of reference to which activists, both women and men, can appeal and from which they can derive moral, financial, and other practical support.
• The evolution in the focus of support for women in the funding agencies, including support for the empowerment of women and reproductive health in UNFPA, for the girl child in UNICEF, and for micro-credit for women in UNDP.
• The UN's role in measuring the undervalued contribution of women to economic development and the use of new indices to identify potential for future generations.
• The first world conference on women in Mexico City to the fourth world conference in Beijing.
• The context of the worldwide changes in the situation of women over the twentieth century, including major contrasts between regions and countries as well as the unfinished agenda on the eve of the 21st century.

  Back