Engendering Science and Technology Policy: The Case of the Gender,Science and Development Programme

A series of UN conferences, beginning in 1993 and leading up to the Fourth UN World Conference on Women at Beijing in 1995, saw an unprecedented degree of international activity in networking, lobbying and advocating around women's concerns and success in getting women's perspectives reflected in international policy.

This article describes the experience of the Gender, Science and Development Pro gramme and the Once and Future Action Network (OFAN), leaders in the international gender, science and technology movement, in their attempts to influence two major UN policy processes: the UN Fourth World Conference on Women, and the Gender Working Group of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development. It asks ques tions concerning the pros and cons of participation in such policy processes within the context of the women's movement in general. The article then looks at the strategies of the two organizations in the post-Beijing era, providing a window into the state of play of the international gender, science and technology movement today.