Liana Fabiani and Ignacio Fernandez

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• The United Nations Decade for Women
• and the Mexico City Conference

• Liana Fabiani and Ignacio Fernandez
• Women in the World (Polsi/SS 544)

Monday, March 27, 2000
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• The Mexico City Conference

• The UN observed 1975 as International Womens
  Year and held the first world conference on women
  between June 19th. and July 2nd. in Mexico City,
  Mexico
• More than 100 nations participated
• 22 governments and 22 NGOs, all headed by the
  Canadian Government, adopted the World Plan of
  Action
• The provisional agenda underlined the status of
  women in society actual, potential and ideal
  and the obstacles to be overcome in attaining
  equal rights, opportunities and responsibilities
• This Action was later adopted by the U.N. General
  Assembly
• A result of the energetic advocacy of women at
  this conference, the UN Development Fund for
  Women (UNIFEM) was established to provide direct
  support to development projects for women.

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• The United Nations Decade for Women

• The UN's Decade for Women and International
  women's conferences have enabled women to develop
  skills and to mobilize the resources necessary to
  influence mainstream policy debates at the
  national and international levels.
• The Decade for Women (1976-1985) was a direct
  outcome of International Women's Year (1975)
  which was a conference held in Mexico city in
  order to combine the concerns of numerous NGOs
  with that of the UN . The year was a period of
  fact finding and planning, and mostly a period
  for action. The program for the Decade of Women
  focused on the first half of the decade
  (1976-1980) and called for a variety of
  activities that would give a voice to women of
  the world and their main preoccupations such as
  improved education, employment opportunities,
  equality in political and social participation,
  and increased health and welfare services
  overall social justice and equity for women. Over
  two-thirds of the member states in the UN adopted
  some form of the "plans" for action.

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• The United Nations Decade for Women

• Mexico City (1975)
• Houston (1977)
• Copenhagen (1980)
• Nairobi (1985) marked the end of the decade for
  women

• Conclusion
• Many Conferences have came after this and have
  grown in size
• Women have thus been able to become associated
  with and involved in a wide range of activities
  concerning women globally taking some of the
  power out of the hands of government and
  money-making agencies