Where next for gender in international development?
Thanks to decades of feminist activism within and outside international institutions, the issue of gender inequality is now firmly embedded within contemporary development policy and practice. However, the content and approach of gender policy remains highly contested amongst feminist academics and activists. The upcoming ‘Beijing +15’ conference at the United Nations in New York presents a timely opportunity for reflection and analysis on some of the key debates in this field. This event will entail a fifteen-year review of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – developed at the Fourth World Conference for Women and arguably the foundation of contemporary gender and development policy – evaluating the extent to which the Platform for Action has been implemented. In this essay I offer a brief overview of some of the debates and policies that inform feminist approaches to development policy and practice. Feminist theories of development fit roughly into two branches – Women i
