Jordan Measuring the Impact of National Policies and Strategies on Gender Equality Enhancing capacity and knowledge of government institutions and ministries to monitor and evaluate impact of policies and strategies on gender equality.  The overall development objective of this program is to strengthen and increase knowledge, accountability, and monitoring mechanisms within the government of Jordan to measure the influence of national policies, and initiatives on progress towards gender equality. There is a critical need to monitor and evaluate what the government has been supporting in terms of activities and initiatives for women?s advancement. Despite the significant steps that Jordanian society has taken in the advancement of women in development, and the number of initiatives, activities, and funding that have gone to this issue, little is known about the level of success that has been achieved. Furthermore, indicators on women?s empowerment in the area of labor force participation, entrepreneurship and public office are uncharacteristically low given their level of education.  So far, it has not been possible to measure the specific impact of policies, programs and projects on Jordan's performance in gender equality. Funding from the donor community tends to focus on women#s human rights and political participation rather than economic development and no funding has been made available to address the issue of M & E. In addition to helping address gender disparities the funds from the IDF could open an opportunity for the government to leverage additional funding for M & E from other donors.  The Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MOPIC) which acts as the de facto gender focal point for the government, has played a pivotal role in integrating gender within Jordan?s development plans and strategies however, MOPIC lacks the mechanisms and capacity to monitor and evaluate national and sub-national initiatives from a gender perspective. In addition the Gender Division at the Department of Statistics (DOS) indicates the need for statistics on issues that affect women either disproportionately or exclusively. Some of those issues include: poverty, informal employment, access to economic opportunities, access to and control over economic assets (such as credit, social security, pensions, safety nets, land, and property); political participation within all avenues of the public sphere, time-use, school attendance, maternal mortality and morbidity, gender attitudes and violence against women.  Specific Objectives:  1. Enhance the institutional capacity of MOPIC#s monitoring and evaluation process to conduct M & E on government projects and policy initiatives related to the CAS from a gender perspective  2. Enhance the national database at the department of statistics with gender indicators on key thematic areas relevant to the government work program and the CAS to be linked to MOPIC#s M & E system (e.g. informal employment, credit, pensions, safety nets etc.) with the potential of expanding to other sectors.  3. Enhance the overall capacity and raise awareness of key national agencies such as the ministries of labor, health, social affairs, civil service, and the national department of statistics to generate and integrate gender statistics in their work and projects.