By Tione Andsen
Lilongwe, Mana: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says Malawi needs to be keen on implementation Malawi 2063 as compared to Vision 2020.
UNDP Deputy Resident Representative to Malawi, Claire Medina made the remarks Tuesday during the working session to Assess Alignment of Sectoral Policies to Malawi 2063, present and test drive Foresight and Horizontal Scanning Methodologies at Ufulu gardens in Lilongwe.
Medina said it was important to note that development context keeps changing and trends of certain developments may not always be the same.
“Factors that disrupt developments keep changing. It is therefore critical for government to continuously conduct policy analyses that you will do looking into the future so that government is able to manage anticipated changes,” the Deputy Representative explained.
She said the support UNDP through National Planning Commission (NPC) is expected to build foresight and anticipatory government capacity within UNDP and government so as jointly deriving intelligence from the observation of relevant global regional developments to develop future proof policies and long term planning and programming capability.
“While 2063 is 42 years from now, foresight can be used in intervals. The NPC has already developed 10 year implementation for the Malawi 2063. The 10 year implementation plan is the reference documents for the alignment of the existing policies and the Malawi 2063,” Medina added.
NPC Director of Knowledge and Learning, Joseph Nagoli said Malawi 2063 brings in need to have all policies align to the aspirations and medium development plans that would lead to the attainment of our vision aspirations.
“One important aspect to be emphasized is that we learn from the past. Our past policies in the previous vision were not consistent with our vision, leading to compartmentalization of development programming,” he observed.
Nagoli thanked UNDP for its financial and technical support to NPC and the partnership has gone a long way to help the country effectively plan its development programmes with evidence.
Director of Planning and Policy in the Ministry of Local government, Lukes Kalilombe said the project has been initiated at a very opportune time after the launch of the long term development strategy Malawi 2063.
He said the aspirations set out in the 43 year vision document would require strategic foresight capabilities of development planners sand policy makers.
Kalilombe added that the project would be extensive data gathering, research and production of reports and policy briefs on cross cutting issues aligning to Malawi 2063.
