Africa/Global: The road not taken

In this paper, the author compares the context, themes and outcomes of the two United Nations conferences, held within six months of each other in 1995: the World Summit on Social Development at Copenhagen and the Fourth World Conference on Women at Beijing. The author finds that Copenhagen set the scene for the aid system’s over-arching policy instrument (the PRSP) while Beijing became invisible to the mainstream. Could it have been otherwise? Can the gender equality agenda still provide an opening to different ways of thinking about economy, society and politics that would allow international aid to support transformative processes for social justice?