Over the past two or so decades the issues of mainstreaming gender in debt and development resource management, has taken centre stage in the continuing debate on improving the application of financial resources, to achieve greater social equity. In response to this debate the Commonwealth Secretariat has prepared this Handbook, to enrich the information available to debt managers, gender advocates and other development practitioners while simultaneously making a contribution to the way forward. The Handbook highlights the linkages between debt and gender and discusses policies and action taken by international agencies and bilateral donors to promote and integrate gender issues in the provision of development assistance. It suggests effective and practical ways through which developing country governments can integrate gender equality considerations in their debt and development resource management. The Handbook makes recommendations for debt recording systems, such as CS-DRMS, to better track the impact of debt and externally funded programmes on gender perspectives.