Speaking recently at the Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Director of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), pointed to the critical role of women's participation and leadership in enhancing democratic governance. "The nations of the world have committed themselves, through the 2000 Millennium Declaration, to a world free from want and free from fear," she said. "The current debate on how to achieve this however, throws up both the growing realization that conventional development and governance approaches are failing to achieve these desired ends, and that it is becoming increasingly important to examine the ways in which power has been exercised in the management of political and economic processes for development."