Reflects the commitment of the United Nations to promote mechanisms that aim to achieve equality between women and men. This book identifies institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women including national machineries as one of twelve critical areas of concern.

Part I: Conceptual frameworks; 1: Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women: mainstreaming gender, democratizing the state?; 2: Gender mainstreaming: conceptual links to institutional machineries; Part II: Comparative analyses; 3: National womeits machinery: state-based institutions to advocate for gender equality 1; 4: National women's machineries: structures and spaces; Part III: Case studies; 5: The role of the women's movement in institutionalizing a gender focus in public policy: the Ecuadorian experience 1; 6: The National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women, the women's movement and gender mainstreaming in the Philippines 1 2 3; 7: National machinery for gender equality in Sweden and other Nordic countries; 8: Gender awareness and the national machineries in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe; 9: The government of the United Kingdom: the Women's National Commission 1; 10: The national machinery for gender equality in Uganda: institutionalized gesture politics?; 11: The National Commission for Women: the Indian experience; 12: The life and times of women's policy machinery in Australia 1; Conclusions: looking forward