Consolidation and strengthening of the relations between the international actors supporting the development processes in Serbia is an important factor that facilitates the overall Aid Coordination efforts of the Serbian Government. From the UN point of view, this practice is considered as an important step forward towards the implementation of the ONE UN concept, that foresees the United Nations Country Team acting as one team, under one project and with harmonized approach to fund raising, under the overall leadership of the empowered Resident Coordinator.

In that sense, in 2006, the UN Resident Coordinator in close consultation with the World Bank in Serbia, initiated a practice of monthly Donor Coordination meetings.

The objective of these meetings, initially, was to review jointly the ongoing and future/planned activities of 15 main Donors, including the World Bank, present in Serbia and the ones of the 15 UN Agencies active in Serbia represented by the UN Resident Coordinator.

At one of the meetings, the group identified the following 10 topics for the development agenda of the country, for which the international community should aim at delivering joint policy guidance to the new Government: social sector reform, energy, decentralization and local capacity building, environment, private sector development, rule of law, security sector reform, agriculture, governance, anti-corruption and disaster management.

The big group of 15 donors, split then into 10 sub-groups in accordance with the objective of defining the policy messages for each of the sectors. Each of the participating agencies appointed focal points for the relevant topics and the sub-group technical meetings began.

This resulted in policy messages for the Government. Subsequently, meetings between the representatives of the Sub-groups, including donor representatives, UN Agencies' focal points, and the high-level Ministries Officials, were organized.

Three more meetings on specific topics are left to be convened following which group members will meet with the Deputy Prime Minister.

The United Nations Resident Coordinator's Office has facilitated the overall coordination of these activities by establishing mailing lists of all groups/sub groups, sharing relevant information, ensuring communications between various groups/sub-groups of donors, collecting necessary inputs from the UNCTand distributing minutes of the Donor Coordination meetings of 15 main donors.

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