The need for integrating women in the development process was placed on the international agenda in 1975, when the UN observed International Women's Year. Among the many concrete steps taken in this regard after the 1975 world conference on women was the creation of two UN bodies, UNIFEM and INSTRAW.

A result of the energetic advocacy of women at the first world conference on women, the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1976 to provide direct support to development projects for women. Originally set up as the Voluntary Fund for the Decade for Women, the Fund was asked to help improve the living standards of women in developing countries by addressing their concerns through providing direct technical and financial support and by promoting the inclusion of women in the decision-making process of mainstream development programmes. In 1985, the Fund became an autonomous body in association with the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and was renamed UNIFEM.

Sometimes described as a bridge between international organizations, policy makers and disadvantaged women, UNIFEM is an aid to and advocate for women of the developing world. Currently, UNIFEM works at the country level through its 10 regional offices. Among its priority areas are trade and industry, credit, science and technology, agriculture and food security, and policy-making and national planning. It also targets critical issues on the global agenda to ensure that gender is included in international policies such as those related to refugees and displaced persons, violence against women, human rights, global governance and environment. UNIFEM has recently established a woman's human rights programme aimed at strengthening the capacity of women's organizations that work on human rights.

The United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women (INSTRAW), established in 1975 by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the first world conference on women, is an autonomous body within the UN system with a mandate to carry out research, training and information activities worldwide to promote women as key agents for sustainable development.

Operating from its headquarters in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, the Institute performs research projects to identify barriers that impede women's equality in the process of social, economic and political development. INSTRAW analyzes existing research material by interacting and working with Governments, UN agencies and academic institutions, as well as non-governmental organizations and other entities.

INSTRAW's experience has proved that the greatest problem affecting women is invisibility. With this purpose, INSTRAW develops new ways of understanding, new methodologies and statistics for training programmes and methods linked to issues such as:

• Economic empowerment;
• Collection of statistics and indicators on women's work in the formal and informal sectors;
• Availability of statistics on elderly women;
• Women and time-use;
• Statistics on women in the informal sector in industry, trade and services;
• Migration of women and the methodological issues involved in the measurement and analysis of internal and international migration;
• Women, water and sanitation and women and water management;
• New and renewable sources of energy;
• Women and environmental management;
• The role of women in environmentally sound and sustainable development;
• The image and participation of women in alternative and mass media;
• Gender and development studies, including training material.