"The 1976 edition of "Women in the World" assessed centuries of women's history. In this new edition, the authors focus on the ten-year period following the 1976 publication -- 1975-1985; hence its subtitle "The Women's Decade". Here, writers of both sexes provide facts, statistics, graphs, and personal observations, candidly revealing their findings and evaluations to the researcher, scholar, student, and the general public." -- Back Cover

The documents adopted by the United Nations World Conference on Women during the Decade for Women (1975-1985) set forth a policy agenda for national and local governments, international institutions, and women's groups worldwide. The dialogue among women at the nongovernmental forums held in tandem with these conferences served to identify, refine, and reassess the issues addressed in the official documents. In this volume, Dr. Fraser has condensed the four major documents of the Decade, retaining much of the original language, and describes the context in which agendas for policies, programs, and research were developed. The opening chapters offer a historical perspective on the establishment of International Women's Year, the Decade for Women, and the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Throughout the book the author analyzes the influence of Third World women on the formulation of the agenda and discusses the interaction between the official and NGO conferences. She concludes by assessing the results in policy and programmatic terms and by exploring their implications for the future.

"Devaki Jain opens the doors of the United Nations and shows how it has changed the female half of the world -- and vice versa. Women, Development, and the UN is a book that every global citizen, government leader, journalist, academic, and self-respecting woman should read." -- Gloria Steinem "Devaki Jain's book nurtures your optimism in this terrible war-torn decade by describing how women succeeded in empowering both themselves and the United Nations to work toward a global leadership inspired by human dignity." -- Fatema Mernissi In Women, Development, and the UN, internationally noted development economist and activist Devaki Jain traces the ways in which women have enriched the work of the United Nations from the time of its founding in 1945. Synthesizing insights from the extensive literature on women and development and from her own broad experience, Jain reviews the evolution of the UN's programs aimed at benefiting the women of developing nations and the impact of women's ideas about rights, equality, and social justice on UN thinking and practice regarding development. Jain presents this history from the perspective of the southern hemisphere, which recognizes that development issues often look different when viewed from the standpoint of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The book highlights the contributions of the four global women's conferences in Mexico City, Copenhagen, Nairobi, and Beijing in raising awareness, building confidence, spreading ideas, and creating alliances. The history that Jain chronicles reveals both the achievements of committed networks of women in partnership with the UN and the urgent work remaining to bring equality and justice to the world and its women.

Description: Text: "We need more than a decade to create an equal society. Where next ...?!"

The documents adopted by the United Nations World Conference on Women during the Decade for Women (1975-1985) set forth a policy agenda for national and local governments, international institutions, and women's groups worldwide. The dialogue among women at the nongovernmental forums held in tandem with these conferences served to identify, refine, and reassess the issues addressed in the official documents. In this volume, Dr. Fraser has condensed the four major documents of the Decade, retaining much of the original language, and describes the context in which agendas for policies, programs, and research were developed. The opening chapters offer a historical perspective on the establishment of International Women's Year, the Decade for Women, and the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Throughout the book the author analyzes the influence of Third World women on the formulation of the agenda and discusses the interaction between the official and NGO conferences. She concludes by assessing the results in policy and programmatic terms and by exploring their implications for the future.