Parties to be guided on development plans
The National Planning Commission (NPC), which is framing a successor plan of the failed Vision 2020, has indicated that it will be meeting political parties during every election cycle to gauge if their manifestos reflect the new development blueprint.
This is so because the manifestos are supposed to be aligned to the blueprint so that development guidelines, in the National Transformation 2063, are followed to the letter.
The vision document to be ready by December this year has three pillars and seven enablers whose thematic focus is inclusive wealth creation and self-reliance.
NPC Director General, Thomas Munthali, who was briefing journalists in Mzuzu over the weekend, said the party that wins the presidential election should be able to make foundations of what is in the development plan.
“We will be engaging the political parties to see what they have in their manifestos. Then after that we will be going back to the people to remind them what the National Transformation 2063 has so that they should be able to compare with what they are being promised,” Munthali said.
He added that the National Planning Commission Act mandates NPC to be giving out reports every year to the President and Parliament and that the reports will be public documents
“What we do is to put a strong monitoring and evaluation framework which will be tracking progress and will be reporting and these will be public documents. So people will be able to know what is working and what is not and why. We hope that through active citizenship, we should be able to push for the Malawi we all want,” he said.
NPC has been soliciting views to be incorporated in the development plan whose response the commission has described as overwhelming.
It is expected to get back to Malawians this week through various media to publicise suggestions they have got and get feedback on what has been missed before the document is finalised.
The pillars in the new vision which will be youth-oriented include productivity and commercialisation of agriculture, resource-based industrialisation and creation of secondary cities through urbanisation.
The key enablers are environmental sustainability, economic infrastructure, human capital development, private sector dynamism, enhanced public sector performance, effective governance systems and mindset change.
