activities to achieve the objectives set out in the Platform. Resources should be creatively sought from many sources, but should include a concerted effort to reallocate existing resources worldwide at all levels through setting priorities and identifying the gender dimension of existing programmes. They should emphasize the high rate of return, especially over the medium and long term, from investing in women, and their multiplier effect on other programmes. Actions are required for new additional resources to be mobilized to implement the Platform for Action in a cost-effective manner. 112. At the national level, this should include applying gender-sensitive planning and evaluation to all public spending, including identifying the amounts directed to benefit women and their impact. Existing programmes directed to women should be maintained and made more effective, by giving highest priority to those programmes that show a high rate of return from programmes targeted to women’s concerns. A greatly increased commitment to implement the Platform for Action should be promoted through intensive and imaginative campaigns by Governments and by non-governmental organizations. Governments should make concrete commitments to implement priority areas of the Platform for Action by the year 2000 with appropriate mechanisms designed to monitor compliance. National machinery should be given a critical role in influencing macroeconomic policies, through consultation in their formulation, financing, implementation and monitoring. Given the large growth of non-governmental organizations concerned with women’s equality, there should be institutionalized systems of financial support to, and networking by, Governments and the United Nations system. 113. At the international, regional and subregional levels, the emphasis should be on evaluating and coordinating the programmes undertaken by organizations of the United Nations system in order to improve their contribution to the implementation of the Platform for Action and to indicate their gender impact. There should be a diagnosis of the existing situation with regard to resource allocation to women’s activities by the United Nations system as a basis for proposing new approaches to resource allocations in United Nations system programmes. International financial institutions should address the negative effects of structural adjustment on women, particularly as a result of reduction of social spending, as well as the benefits from targeting programmes to women. In addition to mobilizing existing mainstream programmes to take a gender approach, new initiatives might be considered. VI. INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR IMPLEMENTATION AND MONITORING OF THE PLATFORM FOR ACTION 114. Existing institutions should be strengthened and new arrangements established, where needed, at the national, regional and international levels, with mandates to monitor the implementation of the Platform for Action. They should provide inputs into policy and planning as well. Steps should be taken to promote cooperation and coordination among non-governmental organizations and national machineries for the advancement of women. 115. National machineries are in place in most countries, but there remains a need to analyse their impact, to strengthen their mandate, to increase their resources and capacities, and to upgrade their position in the national political structure. They should play the key role in monitoring the implementation of the Platform for Action at the national level and have an impact on policy-making. Links between the national machineries and national planning and policy-making structures should be reinforced and special -53-