ABSTRACT
Ever since gender mainstreaming travelled from the 1995 Fourth International Women’s Conference held in Beijing to find accommodation in the European Treaty of Amsterdam signed in 1998, it spread all over the continent. The international debate to a great extent focused on the capacity of gender mainstreaming to impact favourably on gender-just results. Gender mainstreaming framed as targeting for ‘fundamental gender equality’ was defined ambitiously. ‘Mainstreaming, understood as agenda-setting, highlighted the need for fundamental change in the development paradigm, in the structures of the institutions that are involved in development planning and programming, and in the actual strategies, processes and outcomes of development’. Gender mainstreaming demands organisational ownership of the gender mandate and integration of gender justice into the objectives, mechanisms, procedures and professional ethics of agencies.
