28 Advancing Gender Equality in Nepal: Refining gender-responsive budgeting for transformative impact External scrutiny of performance and results is of crucial importance to hold governments to account. Besides the efforts of the OAG and parliament, civil society is a key actor to demand transparency and accountability. CSOs can also have important roles in supporting the work of the women parliamentarians. However, due to underfunding it is important to provide sufficient resources for these extra­governmental actors to build their capacities to perform their roles in advocacy, research, support and accountability in an effective and sustainable way. CSO can also play a crucial role in evidence­based advocacy and disseminating information through various media. This will help to transform information into actionable insights and raise people’s voice at different levels. It is recommended to: • Provide funding for CSOs working on gender equality and public finance, to establish continued input in the budgeting process; • Strengthen alliances among CSOs and NGOs working on gender equality with a view of preparing a list of key priorities for gender equality investments as a basis for continued advocacy; • Strengthen CSO work in holding governments to account, especially monitoring government expenditures in priority policy areas for promoting gender equality; • Organise a process of providing civil society and social leaders with spaces to raise the voice of deprived and marginalised people in the budgetary process, especially women; • Strengthen the role of NGOs in collecting and analysing information on gender impacts of budgets and economic policies; • Facilitate collaboration between CSOs and parliamentarians, especially women parliamentarians, on public budgets and gender equality, e.g. by CSOs providing relevant briefings on gender impacts of budgets and background information on gender equality priorities; • Mobilize research NGOs to conduct in-depth studies on gender impacts of policies and budgets, gender equality and macroeconomic policies, and on GRB; • Support the effectiveness of the MOWCSC by building a strong grassroots network; and • Support community members to play a role in enhancing meaningful participation of communities in budgeting and policy priorities with the aim of more equitable benefit sharing.