NPC in drive to align MW2063 with policies
The National Planning Commission (NPC) has embarked on policy review for ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to align them to Malawi 2063 (MW2063).
NPC director of knowledge and learning Joseph Nagoli said MW2063 brings to thefore some shifts in the way people do things; starting from policy and programmes design, implementation as well as monitoring and evaluation of the development programmes.
He said the Malawi 2063 brings in the need to have all policies align to the aspirations and medium development plans that would lead to the attainment of our vision aspirations.
Nagoli said: “Our past policies in the previous vision were not consistent with our vision, had limited synergies, and most of the times off tangent with each other, leading to compartmentalisation of development programming”.
“The effects of this status quo were poorly implemented policy programmes, which did not even address the aspirations we had in the previous vision”.
He said Malawi suffered coordination problems in the way it implemented development programmes, which resulted in effort duplication, resource misallocation and poor tracking of progress.
“Learning from these failures, we need to start from the basics. Our policies have to demonstrate perfect alignment with our vision. Our strategies operationalising the vision must be guided by policies that are focused to the vision aspirations,” said Nagoli.
Currently the commission is working on a 10-year implementation plan which will spell out initiatives and projects that will spur economic development.
UNDP deputy resident representative Claire Medina said factors that disrupt development keep changing therefore it is critical for government to continuously conduct the policy analyses to manage anticipated changes.
She said: “Malawi needs to do it right with the implementation of Vision 2063 this time around compared to the implementation of Vision 2020”.
Medina said the capacity that MDAs will have acquired from the policy review exercise on foresight will enable them predict the future of each sector in 10-year intervals.
Among others, MW2063 has key pillars of focus for the next 42 years which include agriculture productivity and commercialisation; industrialisation; and urbanisation.
MW2063 succeeded Vision 2020 which did not bring intended results due to lack of sustainable implementation amid lack of deliberate funding for designed programmes.
President Lazarus Chakwera launched MW2063 in January this year which requires MDAs to align their development budgets to the new vision to ensure implementation is done at all levels.
