The National Planning Commission (NPC) has started a consultative exercise to align sectoral plans, policies and strategies to the country’s medium overarching strategy, the Malawi Development and Growth Strategy (MGDS III).
The exercise, which started yesterday in Salima, will see NPC dating 17 government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to critically scrutinise their existing strategies and policies towards MGDS 111.
This task by the planning commission is the first of its kind in Malawi as the country has in the past implemented a number of medium-term plans which were criticised for not talking to both sectoral and district development plans.
Since 1962, Malawi has had 11 development plans whose main goal was to grow the economy at an average of six percent.
“We would like to analyse the current policies, plans, strategies and other key documents being used by MDAs in various sectors and ensure that there is an alignment to the current national medium-term plan which is MGDS III. We want to make sure that we are in the same direction,” said NPC director general Thomas Chataghalala Munthali yesterday on the sidelines of a first meeting with officials from Treasury.
Munthali said at the end of the exercise, the commission will come up with a ‘digest’ or a database that will help address all glaring gaps manifested in all misalignments between the sectoral plans and MGDS III.
Once the alignment is done, the NPC boss said they will be meeting regularly with all MDAs as a continuous process to review their progress and ‘troubleshoot’ in areas where MGDS III, is not in sync with sector plans.
He stated that NPC’s main interest is tracking the impact of various interventions, especially the flagship projects in MDGSIII to ensure that the plans that are being implemented translate into better lives for all Malawians.
Meanwhile, Malawi Economic Justice Network (Mejn) is currently implementing a five-year social accountability project titled ‘Enhancing Social Accountability for Better MGDS III Development Results and Outcomes’ to enhance compliance and responsiveness by duty-bearers.
NPC is an independent think-tank established through an Act of Parliament of 2017.
