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The Lesotho Minister for Agriculture, Co-operatives, and Marketing was reported recently to have shaken the delegates at the World Conference on Agrarian Reform and Development in Rome by his observation on the value of such intergovernmental gatherings on the subject of development:

This essay describes the increasing radicalization of the United Nations-sponsored Decade for Women from 1975 to 1985, as seen in the final documents from each of its three conferences: the Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action, the Copenhagen Programme of Action, and the Nairobi Forward-Looking Strategies. The essay also argues that the Decade for Women demonstrates the significance of the United Nations to the creation of a truly international women's movement, to the acceptance of many varied definitions of "feminism," and to the advancement of all peoples' human rights.

This article analyses the pilot public housing project in Kibera Soweto East in Nairobi under the Kenya Slum Upgrading Programme (KENSUP), courtesy of a partnership between the Government of Kenya and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), which began in 2004. The article examines the process of temporary relocation of Soweto East Zone A residents, seven years after the launch of this project, and takes a critical look at the effects of this relocation on the affected population. In order to achieve this, data on Soweto East will first be presented followed by information obtained from surveys conducted on Soweto East residents by Amnesty International and UN-HABITAT. The temporary relocation of residents shall then be analysed with reference to book reviews, interviews and site visits. Finally, the key points analysed within this article shall be presented briefly along with the recommendations derived from this study.

In this chapter, the authors examine the work done by the United Nations to improve the status of women from its origin until 1995, when the fourth and final United Nations World Conference on Women took place. The study shall be divided into three periods. The first spans the era of legal defence of women's rights. The second period begins with the turn of events spurred by the Programme of Concerted International Action for the Advancement of Women in 1970 and continues with the proclamation of the United Nations' International Women's Year in 1975 and the United Nations Decade for the Advancement of Women (1975–1985). Over this 10-year period, three conferences were held: the one that took place in Mexico (1975), the one in Copenhagen (1980) and finally the one in Nairobi (1985). The third period takes a look at the Beijing Conference (1995) and the unprecedented advances it brought about in terms of equality. While the work done by the United Nations was undeniably valuable, as shown in this study, its efforts were not accompanied by marketing work that would have enabled it to make a greater impact on the international public opinion.