The national policies and implementation mechanisms for girls' primary and women's basic education in the following Asian countries were examined: Lao People's Democratic Republic; Nepal, Thailand; Indonesia; and India. The analysis focused on the following issues: (1) goals and progress; (2) national policies; (3) strategies (strengthening nonformal education; targeting ethnic minority and rural women; launching innovative programs; cultivating gender sensitivity; making education compulsory; introducing preschooling; recruiting and training women teachers; relating to girls); and (4) outstanding issues (valuing girls' education; managing the entry of private schooling; party politics compromising education; the slow pace of decentralization; inadequate funding). The following were among the 14 national and international recommendations that emerged from the study: (1) strengthen girls' and women's education as a tool of empowerment and poverty alleviation; (2) nurture horizontal communication between ministries to foster a cohesive, gender-responsive approach by government to education; (3) adopt participatory methods; (4) develop mechanisms to harness the successful learning from micro projects; (5) promote public dialogue on the value of girls' education; (6) initiate systematic monitoring and evaluation of girls' and women's learning outcomes; (7) provide needed training and support to women in gender-test roles; and (8) develop and apply a gender lens for international funding and interventions. (Contains 48 footnotes.) (MN)