Most
countries around the world have challenges which stand in the way of their
advancement and prosperity. For some countries, the challenge may be one of
limited access to energy, for others it may be high unemployment and for others
still it may be high rates of eliteracy, while some countries may face a
combination of all these problems and much more.
Some
countries have developed mechanisms to overcome these challenges in the form of strategic long term plans (SLTP), which plans set out to clearly isolate and
understand the challenges the country faces and identify possible opportunities and then
developing policies and frameworks to
overcome the challenges and exploit the identified opportunities. The World
Bank defines Strategic Long Term Planning (SLTP) as, “the process by which the
leaders of an organization determine what the organization wants to look like
at the end of a specified period of time – usually three to five years – then
use that vision to establish multi-year goals and objectives which describe
what the organization wishes to accomplish, and develop programs, tasks, and
timelines for achieving them.” In this definition, the term organization can
easily be replaced with, country.
China
is a good example of a country which has employed the SLTP process characterised
by its Five Year Plans. Arguably, China’s Five Year Plans, since the 1950’s, have enabled the country to move from being one of the poorest and most
underdeveloped economies in the world to being the second largest economy in
the world today. The success of any country’s SLTP relies on the coordination
of effort across different players in society, with government at the center, coordinating the efforts of all the role players. As Professor William Gumede
points out, “at the heart of proper planning is effective coordinationand integration of development policies, whether fiscal, monetary or social, across government.” The Communist Party of China has become a master at strategic long
term planning, in my opinion, this is mainly due to the fact that the ruling Communist
Party has been doing this since the 1950’s. Others may argue that success in
China may have been largely due to China's status as a one-party state. Being a one-party
state potentially reduces complexity in terms of first, reaching consensus on the issues and secondly, the coordination of the agreed plan.
For
many years since the dawn of a democratic South Africa in 1994, the country
functioned without a Strategic Long Term Plan and in 2009, the Presidency under
the leadership of former Minister Trevor Manuel recognized the need for South Africa
to have a SLTP. As a result, the National Planning Commission (NPC) was set up with
the aim of coming up with a SLTP for the country. In 2013, after months of
research and consultations with different stakeholders in society, both private
and public, the NPC launched the National Development Plan (NDP). The chief aim of
the NDP is “to eliminate poverty and reduce inequality by the year 2030.” The
NDP outlines ten areas of focus towards achieving the goal of eliminating
poverty and reducing inequality and these areas are: a) Housing, water electricity and sanitation;
b) Safe
and reliable public transport; c) Quality
education and skills development; d) Safety
and security; e) Quality healthcare; f) Social protection; g) Employment; h) Recreation and leisure; i) Clean environment and j) Adequate nutrition.
In 2014, as a way to kick start the
implementation of the NDP, President Zuma’s government introduced the first of hopefully many five-year plans. 2016 will mark year two of the first five-year planning
cycle under the NDP’s vision 2030 and the question is what has been the track record
of the NPC so far?
One
of the more visible implementations of the NDP, driven by the NPC, has been
“Operation Phakisa” which was launched by President Zuma in October of 2014. Currently, “Operation Phakisa” has two objectives, first to leverage South Africa’s ocean resources,
spear-headed by the Department of Environment and secondly, to improve service
delivery in the public sector clinics, spear-headed by the Department of
Health. “Operation Phakisa” therefore seems to be addressing two of the ten
focus areas of the NDP, viz.: quality healthcare and employment. It is still
early to pass judgement on the gains of “Operation Phakisa”. The NPC and government have yet to
make public plans to address the other eight of the ten focus areas of the NDP. To be sure, there is still a long way to go to make the NDP a reality and to achieve the goals
outlined in the bold plan that the NPC has put forward.
It
is my opinion that in order for the NDP to be successfully implemented, it is
going to require a large dose of political will.
Our Politicians must show political willingness to create effective government
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