14 Advancing Gender Equality in Nepal: Refining gender-responsive budgeting for transformative impact prepare reports. However, gender equality is only marginally integrated. The monitoring and reporting format is limited to statistics such as the number of households benefitting, head counting of male and female beneficiaries, and number of households belonging to different social groups (Brahman/Chhetri/Thakuri, Janjati, Madhesi, Muslim, Dalit, etc). There is no specific qualitative or quantitative GMF. 3.4 Auditing for gender-equality results and for GRB implementation The Government of Nepal has established regular internal and external auditing processes and systems. The auditing system focuses on the targets and achievements related to budget allocations and expenditures, financial compliance and reporting. However, most audits are limited to assessing physical and financial progress. While this progress has led to some changes in the lives of people including women and children, such impacts are not included in the auditor’s guidelines or legislative mandates. Some ministries, such as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health, have implemented gender audits on their projects to see the impact of the intervention on women’s lives, such as in maternal health and girls’ education. But overall there is a current gap in the auditing practice of Nepal. It is recommended that: • The Office of the Auditor General strengthens its work on gender audits and ensures that gender-equality perspectives are well integrated into all its performance audits; • A dedicated, well-staffed unit for gender audits be established within the OAG offices to build knowledge and expertise, and ensure regular gender audits of policies and budget; • Internal and external auditing processes, regulations and laws be reviewed to strengthen the integration of gender audits at all levels, integrating gender-equality perspectives in financial and performance auditing; • Existing practices, e.g. in the sector of health and education, be reviewed and used as a basis for sharing experience and strengthening the practice across all ministries and public institutions; • Any project supporting the OAG or other internal audit processes include gender­equality auditing components; • A review be carried out by using internationally established tools and approaches of gender auditing(see Annex 3), auditing for gender-equality results and auditing GRB implementation, to learn from proven best practices; and • An exchange take place with the International Organisation of Supreme Audit Institutions (INTOSAI) to take advantage of their resources on gender audits and other relevant tools.