Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 5.c.1 “Proportion of countries with systems to track and make public allocations for gender equality and women’s empowerment” has been recently reclassified as Tier II by the Inter-Agency Expert Group on SDGs. The indicator measures progress towards Target 5c of the SDGs to “adopt and strengthen sound policies and enforceable legislation for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of all women and girls at all levels”. It links the policy and legal requirements for gender equality with resource allocations for their implementation. By tracking resource allocations, governments introduce deliberate measures into the planning and budgeting cycle to meet their gender policy objectives such as eliminating gender based violence or increasing women’s employment. By making these allocations public, governments commit to higher levels of transparency and accountability in budget decision making.

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. The...