There is growing awareness of the need for government interventions to be more reflective of the
broader realities of societal and cultural norms within its context. For that to happen there is need for monitoring and evaluation systems to account for dynamics relating to the differences between men and women. Gender-responsive evaluation systems can augment government efforts to promote gender equality and equity by embedding these dimensions into its evaluation approaches, methods, processes and results. These efforts ultimately deepen gender consciousness in government policies, plans, budgets and programs. In view of this, the TB seeks to explore how the partner countries can strengthen their efforts to make gender equity and equality innate in their national evaluation systems and safeguard the empowerment of women. These endeavors can happen in instances where women needs; views and experiences have been excluded and have been previously discriminated in development programmes implemented by the government. Thus evaluation can help those involved in policy making and programme designing to have a socio-cultural insight into these gender norms and expectations in any given context so that appropriate interventions can be designed accordingly. Although progress has been made by governments to drive change by fostering gender equality and the rights of women, the extent of gender responsiveness of national monitoring and evaluation systems is still a relatively new concept.
