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CHANGE IN DONOR ACTIVITIES:

This process has also stimulated key changes in the attitudes within the donor community. First, there has been an important change in the attitude of policy-makers regarding the socio-economic dimensions of the desertification problem and the need for incorporating these factors into action programmes.

Second, this process has stimulated a new awareness on the need to coordinate action and aid programmes. There has been a heightened awareness of the problems in national and regional resource management and the need to build on the very concrete successes and to avoid replication of the failures of the 1977 Plan of Action. This process not only addressed the issue of the orientation of development aid, but has prompted the need for pointed efficiency in aid spending through the increased coordination and cooperation that will be catalyzed by the new Global Mechanism. Through the Mechanism aid flows should be better monitored and assessed, and efforts should be stimulated to increase aid coordination on the ground, ensuring that good pilot programmes are developed and replicated. The Mechanism should also help stimulate increased awareness within the international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, the IMF and the regional development banks, regarding the new approach that must be taken in combatting desertification.