Commission hints at revisiting MGDS III
The National Planning Commission (NPC) has hinted at revisiting some priorities in the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS III) to align them to the new long-term strategy which will be developed in line with Africa’s Agenda 63.
NPC Director General, Thomas Munthali, was speaking in Lilongwe yesterday during a National Envisioning Conference for civil society organisations.
Munthali said the MGDS III is mostly aligned to the Vision 2020 which ends on December 31.
MGDS III, which runs from 2017 to 2022, is the fourth medium-term national development strategy aligned to the country’s long-term n a t i o n a l dev e lopme n t aspirations, which are articulated in Vision 2020.
Munthali said the successor plan for Vision 2020 is slated to be launched in October 2020.
He said civil society organisations have a significant role to play in the crafting and implementation of national development plans.
Munthali said civil society players work a lot with people on the grassroots and, therefore, understand challenges and successes of the people better.
He said the commission, which is currently developing a successor plan to Vision 2020, expects the civil society to play a critical role in ensuring that the new plan is effectively implemented.
“At the end of the day, this will be a people’s vision. As NPC, we are not going to be in the office and craft a vision for the country. It is the people who are going to tell us the Malawi they want to see in 2063 and how do they want to see a typical Malawian looking like at that point in time.
“The people that work closely with the grassroots are the civil society organisations,” Munthali said.
He hailed Congoma for organising the conference which was held with financial support from IM Swedish.
He underscored the need for Malawi to identify things that are working in various sectors of the economy so that they are upscaled when developing a successor plan to Vision 2020.
Congoma Programmes Manager, Simekinala Kaluzi, described the conference as crucial saying it would help civil society organisations to better appreciate their role in development planning process.
“We know that we are also representing communities at different levels so we are acting as a bridge between the communities and the various stakeholders at the national level,” Kaluzi said.
