There is a momentum for these issues growing with the help of local constituencies often found working for progress in health, education, WID and NGO-led development. We would do well to reinforce these constituencies. But we clearly are lacking the constituency for food security and population. For these survival issues, the sell must somehow reach the political level more profoundly. The donor system also is in a dynamic time.
Development assistance has a positive learning curve.
Donors are more discerning about their programmes, design with more care and are now more focused on the core problems of development. Collectively, donors for the first time, at least on paper, have agreed at the DAC on what they can and should achieve together. Seeking collective coherence is also illustrated in the multilateral system with the launching of the UN System-wide Special Initiative on Africa. Despite these bright signs, donors are backing off. The prospects are that through the end of the century, we will see a continuing soft landing in aid levels.