APM for evidence-based policy making, planning

President Peter Mutharika has asked Cabinet secretaries in Africa to employ evidence-based decision-making to avoid coming up with theoretical and unpractical policies that are left to gather dust on office bookshelves.
Mutharika said this on Monday at the opening of the five-day Third Roundtable Workshop of the African Cabinet Secretaries which has brought together 12 members of the African Cabinet Government Network (ACGN).

Malawi is hosting the workshop at a time when government is implementing the Public Service Reforms Programme.
In his remarks, the President said in their roles as Cabinet secretaries or Chief Secretary as is the case in Malawi, the officers have a duty to ensure that Cabinet decision-making is effective and efficient.

He said: “It is your duty to ensure that appropriate procedures are developed to guide the policy-making process. If Africa is to move forward, we cannot tolerate haphazard policy development. We cannot accept policies that do not listen to the people, to the procedures, and to evidence.”
Mutharika touted two Malawi projects, Public Policy Research and Analysis Project and a policy manual called the Guide to Executive Decision-making Process.
Council of African Cabinet president Ernest Surrur said despite all the progress in African governance over the last 60 years, it has been found that many of the decisions by Cabinets have not been implemented in an effective manner.

Surrur, who is also Cabinet secretary in the Sierra Leone government, said proposals to cabinet have been submitted without evidence that they would work.
He said: “Cabinets were not told, for example, whether the recommended interventions had been successful elsewhere or whether the recommended intervention has been piloted in our own countries.”
Also on the agenda of the workshop is how to better understand members of the Cabinet who are ministers.
Surrur said the meeting Public Policy Research and Analysis Project and a policy manual called the Guide to Executive Decision-making Process.
Council of African Cabinet president Ernest Surrur said despite all the progress in African governance over the last 60 years, it has been found that many of the decisions by Cabinets have not been implemented in an effective manner.

Surrur, who is also Cabinet secretary in the Sierra Leone government, said proposals to cabinet have been submitted without evidence that they would work.
He said: “Cabinets were not told, for example, whether the recommended interventions had been successful elsewhere or whether the recommended intervention has been piloted in our own countries.”
Also on the agenda of the workshop is how to better understand members of the Cabinet who are ministers.
Surrur said the meeting would discuss how to foster an evidence of culture in the Cabinet where ministers would question each other about evidence to support proposals rather than political point scoring and competing for the approval of the president.

The meeting is also expected to discuss the role of Cabinet secretaries in political transitions as the members from Uganda and South Sudan transition a re-elected government and enter into a transitional government of national unity respectively.

In the democratic dispensation, Malawi has not been spared of haphazard implementation of projects. During his reign between 1994 and 2004, Muluzi introduced the Mtwara Development Corridor Project as an alternative shorter route to the sea for landlocked Malawi.
However, his successor the late Bingu wa Mutharika embarked on
a new project, the Shire-Zambezi Waterway that sought to open Malawi to the port of Chinde on the Indian Ocean coast, about 234 kilometres from Nsanje, using Shire and Zambezi rivers.
The waterway project stalled pending a feasibility study.

Besides, government has also failed to account for some decisions such as importation of tractors using an Indian bank loan to mechanise agriculture. However, the tractors and other equipment were sold to some influential people in society.