As OECD experience shows, strengthening the capacities of these institutions to monitor gender equality programmes and gender mainstreaming to enable effective results-based accountability and promote the development of gender-disaggregated data and the use of gender analysis is critical to ensure their effectiveness and sustainability over time. In addition, mandates derived from constitutions or enshrined in law afford national mechanisms a greater sense of political legitimacy and stability, accompanied by a sufficient resource base, than do mandates originating from a governmental decree. Ensuring sufficient human and financial resources tends to be a challenge for most types of institutions, particularly those outside of the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC)1 region.