This thesis analyses the multiple dilemmas faced by feminist activists in the process of choosing between engaging or not in UN institutional agendas. These dilemmas include risking cooptation by the very processes they seek to oppose, possibly legitimating them; or contesting and offering resistance to these processes. The case upon which the analysis is carried is the Financing for Development (FfD) process, which culminated in the Monterrey Consensus in 2002. Despite the (foretold) perspectives of frustration, many Transnational Feminist Movements (TFMs) decided to stay in the process until the end, by articulating a politics of engagement and resistance (which they call an inside/outside strategy). The strategy calls for critically participating in official discussions and, at the same time, contesting the invisibility of how gender structures the current intellectual and practical development project. To conclude, two hypotheses are raised regarding this decision to engage. According to the first, this counter-intuitive decision is a result of two factors: the perception of the UN as a vital space of engagement; and the importance of carrying out contentious politics as part of a larger process. The second hypothesis understands this decision as pervaded by logics of power internal to the TFMs, who seek to maintain the institutional spaces they have struggled to acquire since the UN Decade for Women. The conclusion points to the dilemmatic nature of this strategy.