This joint programme, developed within the "One UN" principles, forges a partnership between UNCDF, UNIFEM and UNDP, to support local governments in five African countries to ensure gender equitable development and improvement of women's access to resources and services at the local level through gender responsive planning, programming and budgeting. UNCDF, UNIFEM and UNDP have consolidated strengths and experience in supporting performance-based gender responsive planning and budgeting for local development, which can be drawn from various countries all over the world.

These complimentary perspectives are being brought together to generate empirical experience on gender-equitable local development that could be replicated and up-scaled. The central output is to construct a model that establishes linkages between planning intentions and policy outcomes in relation to achieving gender equality through equitable allocations.

Three substantive components are therefore proposed: (a) planning and budgeting: local govemment planning and budgeting intentions apply the 'gender-lens' and include sex disaggregated targets and benchmarks and measures that support women's empowerment (b) equitable performance: sysfemafib monltoring of budget performance dissecf the realities of LG expenditure and iß impact on gender equity - this includes the realities of expenditure outæmes on the empowerment of, or the impediment to, the empowerment of womeni and (c) knowledge generation and policy, with emphasis on policy engagement, advocacy, communications and Rnowledge generation.

A chief technical adviser will ensure not only consistent policy analysis and technical guidance to programme implementation but also, the inteqration of the country-qenerated knowledqe into the wider UN family.