Tokyo has differed from similar pledging conferences of recent years in one important respect: unlike in the cases of Bosnia, or Kosovo, or even East Timor, no formal international structure is being set up to co-ordinate the reconstruction effort and to shoulder much of the burden of administering a country that, after more than 20 years of strife, has only the most rudimentary governmental mechanism of its own.

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At present, the Science and Technology Council, the government's top policymaking body in the field, is meant to set priorities and to co-ordinate research.

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The Geneva-based United Nations Economic Commission for Europe was set up in 1947 to co-ordinate reconstruction in shattered post-war Europe.

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The euro area does need to find some way to co-ordinate its 12 fiscal policies with the single monetary policy set by the ECB.

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Action 2000, a body set up by the government to co-ordinate its campaign to beat the bug, says that in the past year about 15% of the microchip-controlled production lines in factories have failed tests of whether they can cope with dates beyond 1999.

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Though states can set some rules, only federal authorities can co-ordinate interstate trading of power, reserve power arrangements, antitrust issues and the like.

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Although the government has no law specifically targeting the sex trade, it has set up an inter-ministerial group to co-ordinate the efforts of the police, immigration officials and others.

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Silver Command, a multi-agency taskforce, has been set up in Ryedale, to monitor the threat of flooding and co-ordinate a response.

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One idea is that France should set up a National Defence and Security Council, loosely modelled on the American version, to co-ordinate domestic and foreign security.

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