Recent reforms of aid delivery, most notably the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005), have provided new opportunities and mechanisms to translate donor and government commitments into improved practice results and impacts. Achieving internationally agreed development goals will however not be possible without progress on gender equality and women's empowerment. A the same time, implementing the Paris Declaration's overarching partnerships commitment is a powerful way of accelerating progress in Millennium Development Goal 3: gender equality and women's empowerment.

This discussion paper was prepared following UNIFEM's sub-regional Consultations on gender equality and aid effectiveness held in various countries in Africa in 2006-2007 (Burundi in July 2006, Djibouti in November 2006, Ghana in November 2006 and Zambia in July 2007). The consultations brought together representatives from governments, donor partners and civil society to share experiences and explore strategies for advancing gender equality goals in the new aid environment.

This call for Action was issued following the meeting on “Gender and Development: Towards Effective, Inclusive Development” Organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Republic of Korea and co-hosted by UN Women, in July 2011. The meeting sought to work towards a consensus on the political message that partner countries, DAC members, South-South cooperation providers, multilaterals and CSOs can engage to ensure a catalytic role of gender equality in achieving development goals.

This article by Rebecca Carter, Stephen Lister looks at the relevance of budget support to financing the relevant MDGs, and draws some conclusions about the role of budget support, how it should be designed and the attitude civil society organizations should adopt towards it.

The monitoring and evaluation process of implementation of the Paris Declaration has been broadly debated among civil society organizations involved in the aid effectiveness process. This primer prepared by the Association for Women's Rights in Development (AWID) in 2008 presents a general overview of this process, the key results of the first official round of monitoring, and the main concerns and recommendations put forward by CSOs participating in the parallel process towards the HLF3.

This third primer in the AWID Aid Effectiveness and Women's Rights series focuses on describing how the parallel tracking process is being undertaken independently by CSOs and, most recently, some women's rights organizations. This primer seeks first to provide a background and overview of this parallel process, then identifies some pressing concerns, and lastly presents some recommendations from the civil society perspective.

This first primer of the AWID Aid Effectiveness and Women's Rights Series published in 2008 provides an overview of the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the subsequent new aid modalities that have emerged from donor discussions to foster a more effective and efficient use of resources for financing development.

The report prepared by the OECD DAC provides statistics on aid focused on gender equality and women's empowerment extended by DAC members. The statistics are basedon Members' reporting on the Gender Equality Policy Marker.  Information includes the share of aid focussed on gender equality, top ten recipients, a sector breakdown and marker coverage for each DAC donor.

The EC/UN Partnership has reviewed the extent to which commitments to women's security and peacebuilding needs have been financed by Official Development Assistance (ODA) in four different post-conflict situations: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nepal, Bougainville (Papua New Guinea), and Aceh (Indonesia).

The paper provides a comprehensive overview and guide to complex issue of linkages between aid and gender equality. Moreover, the position paper addresses the intricate linkages and identifies existing challenges for future action in development practice and research with a view to increasing aid efficiency.