The purpose of this study is to design a framework for the evaluation of progress within the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP) in the broad category of human rights – political and civil rights – and democratic development. The basic assumption underlying the benchmarking system proposed towards this end is that objectively monitoring progress towards commonly formulated goals is a tool that can be used towards the achievement of such goals. Monitoring is thus regarded as a partnership-building instrument, and this approach presided over the identification of the key priority-areas earmarked for benchmarking, and the associated selection of appropriate indicators. The study contains two parts: the first part discusses the usefulness of monitoring against the background of existing political dialogue frameworks, proposes the appropriate methodology and identifies the set of areas/priorities for a common benchmarking system; the second part discusses in depth the types of indicators through which progress in the identified areas/priorities should be evaluated.