In most MENA countries," responsibility for gender equality is located primarily in a single institution, most often in close proximity to the Centre of Government. While there is no uniform institutional set up for gender issues across the MENA region, those institutions involved would strongly benefit from clarifying and strengthening the mission and the mandate for advancing gender equality and ensuring sufficient human and financial resources and organisational capacities. In addition, strengthening mandates of gender equality oversight mechanisms, including ombudsman, human rights or gender equality commissions, would advance the protection of women’s rights and enable more effective implementation of equality strategies. Yet while MENA governments increasingly adopt co-ordinated approaches, examples of co-operation across the region remain limited. The existing approaches to co-ordination appear insufficient to achieve policy coherence and a “whole-of-government” approach to gender equality in MENA countries. Designing this type of strategy requires the use of a rigorous process to embed gender considerations in policy and programme design and delivery (i.e. gender mainstreaming).