Although, policies are developed and adopted by the African Head of states to ensure equality, gender inequality is still a major concern on the continent. The Global Gender Gap Index of the World Economic Forum revealed in 2016 that while there exist some country success stories, there is generally limited progress on closing the gender gap in every region of the world. With an average gender gap of 32%, Sub-Saharan Africa displays a wider range of gender gap outcomes than practically any other region in the world. This compendium provides interesting insights on the current state of gender issues on the African continent as well as successful efforts to close the gender gap and promote women.The compendium points to policy recommendations and capacity imperatives that are needed to address the issue of gender equality as follows: ensure effective mainstreaming of gender issues in national and regional development planning; support research-development through specialized think tanks so as to formulate specific and evidence based gender policies; support gender sensitive budgeting in countries; improve access of women to productive inputs; promote national systems of gender disaggregated statistics and monitoring and evaluation; and ensure active stakeholders' participation in gender policies elaboration and implementation. In that perspective, capacity building is needed, hence the necessity of support from continental capacity building coordinating institutions.