Gender equality and sustainable development

Championed by a wide range of stakeholders from civil society and the Women’s Major Group, to Governments and United Nations agencies, the Rio+20 Conference in June will no doubt include gender equality in several places of its outcome document. What will this mean for the achievement of true gender equality and sustainable development? The two are inextricably linked, but the discourse on gender equality and sustainable development within the context of Rio+20 cannot be fully understood without looking back at some remarkable events which shaped the first Rio Conference 20 years ago.