With the stage set for the meeting of the Aid to Bangladesh Club, tn Paris later this month, the government, we hope, will not spare any efforts in its preparation for this major event. Here, the new administration of Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia faces a number of crucial tests, including a few unexpected ones.

In the first place, the massive destruction of Infrastructure along the coastal belt of Bangladesh by the cyclone that hit the country last week, not to mention of the need for short-term relief and rehabilitation In affected areas, have changed our projection of the total volume of aid ana assistance needed by this country. Even before the calamity had ravaged parts of the country, the Minister for Finance and Planning. Saifur Rahman had called for "increased" assistance from donor nations and agencies. To what extent Mr Rahman's target will be further raised remains anybody's guess. However, when tl comes to short-term rellel ' and rehabilitation, including construction of houses, roads and bridges, there should be maximum mobilisation of Internal re sources to meet the cost. Instead of merely offer ing assurances and pledges in this regard, our delegation to the Paris meeting should be most specific in quantifying the size of our internal mobilisation.

Another test may be Just as crucial for the Bangladesh delegation as the first one. Although Prime Minister Khaleda Zia has spoken at length to heads of foreign missions here on her administration's economic priorities, mostly in political terms rather than in the language of development. high level delegations at the Paris meeting would be curious to Know more about the socioeconomic agenda of the new government. To be more specific, they would be anxious to see how the administration strikes a balance between continuity of policies and a fresh approach, between making politically-motivated concessions, such as the annulment of agricultural loans of certain size, which even the Finance Minister may not fully support and launching a serious austerity drive In public and private spending to raise the level of national saving which been falling drastically in recent years.

On this ana other issues, the delegation to Paris, especially the Minister for Finance and Planning, would be well-advised to organise closed-door meetings with experts from outside the administration, a practice rarely followed by ?;overnment leaders. On some of these issues, entative views have been already expressed in the columns of this paper by eminent experts. Including two former finance ministers. M. Syeduzzaman and A. M. A. Muhith. The need to strengthen the Planning Commission which had become virtually moribund during the last years of the Ershad rule has been emphasised by Mr Syeduzzaman. If the Planning Commission is given a new lease of life and separated from the Ministry of Finance, something should also be done to raise the level of our data collection.

Among many things which went wrong in the development process during the Ershad regime, by far the most serious mistake was that, more often than not. M was directed by one man. sometimes through a series of adhoc and instant decisions. The donor nations and agencies in Paris must know that from now on. the development process will be handled through a system and not by any single Individual and that even if, at the start, the decision-making process works a bit more slowly than in the past. the end result will be more durable, productive and beneficial than anything we had seen in the past.