An everyday meaning of 'global' in relation to global policy negotiations implies that the global stands above, outside, or beyond, spheres defined as national or local. This chapter explains different ways of understanding the relationship of global, national and local, and explores some contentions around meanings of gender equality in education. It considers how these line up with different views of poverty and reviews some of the implications of these diverse meanings for the relationships between people that propel policies across an arc from global through national to local. Global gender equality education policies flowing between contexts can be understood as examples of bands of high or low pressure moving across different sites. They comprise ideas mixed from different contexts, possibly human rights, basic needs, capabilities, different meanings of gender. Gender mainstreaming was a key strategy, advocated in the Beijing Declaration of 1995, and promoted as a means to make institutions reflexive about gender hierarchies, and responsive to address inequalities.