Integrated Development Planning (IDP) under the IRBM

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Permalink Reply by Solomon Mhlanga on October 2, 2008 at 12:56pm

Hello Pamella,

I believe you are on the right track. The core reason of why AfCOP was formed was to assist in propelling the development of Africa by those who are in the development field. AfCOP is there to build capacity in MfDR through the exchange of ideas ,sharing experiances networking and indeed putting into practice what will have been learnt. Africa does not have the luxury of hoping that a better tomorrow will come by itself. It has to come through deliberate efforts that will ensure that Africa moves up from its present state of development. It is therefore within the mandate of AfCOP to find ways of disseminating critical information to key players in the development field. It is now incumbent on us Africans to come up with ways of how we can work with our governments on these critical development issues. Through this platform it should be possible to get suggestions from members on how this critical information can be disseminated.,

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Permalink Reply by Pamella Lakidi on October 3, 2008 at 1:16am

Dear Solomon,
It is always great to find another like-minded person in life. So, it is great to find you. Thank you. I will be cooperating with you to see that you and I and everybody else that wants to see Africa become better place.

Than you again.

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Permalink Reply by Arunaselam Rasappan on October 2, 2008 at 2:09pm

Hello Pamella - good to hear from you and glad you are able to join in again.

On your questiona, I think Solomon Mhlanga has covered it all in his response. We are looking at the CoP as an important means of reaching out to as wide an audience as possible. We hope that through the CoP mechanism, we can help bring about a dynamic environment of sharing, learning, innovating on a range of topics and issues related with MfDR. At the end of the day, it would be really gratifying to know that through this collaborative mechanism, we have made a difference to the development struggle of developing countries.

I'm looking forward to hear more from you on your own experiences related to the topics being discussed.

Regards.

Aru Rasappan

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Permalink Reply by Pamella Lakidi on October 3, 2008 at 1:14am

Dear Aru,
Thank you for responding promptly to my issue. I sure will be making not a very small contribution to this effort. I am happy to be a part of the solution.

Thanks again.

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Permalink Reply by Bimerew Alemu on October 6, 2008 at 11:08am

Dear Dr Aru
I have a question that the response and experiences would be of great support to the work we have in pipeline.

Having in mind that development planning is the means to take an over all view of national development policy, to study the interaction between policy objectives and instruments and to coordinate them and knowing that development plan gets its beginning at the preparation of a plan manual my unit started preparing a manual. We have done some draft work but we want to deepen that. We would be happy to get information from network memebers if any other Federal Set up has a good experience of development plan manual?

Regards
Bimerew Alemu
From Ethiopia

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Permalink Reply by Sithole Humbe on October 7, 2008 at 8:26am

Dr. Aru
The Accra resolution you articulated down was straight to the reason behind IRBM. The makers and pioneers of RBM are fully aware of the redundancies in Governments of Developing Countries. Im hundred percent in support of the realisation that Donors want to plough their funds in a transparent and accountable driven system.

Development Plans are made but the processes are not systematically castigated. On paper everything looks perfect and sounds as the country has crossed the ocean of the "Indian Summer Season" problems. Donor aid is reduced to peanuts due to "greed " on the part of the receiving Governments/ Agency. Duplication of functions where donor funds goes in the name of development is a cause for concern in our country. Prioritisation of programs and resource allocation from donor aid is only a workshop talk.

Developing countries in general come up with their Development Plans with less or minimum consultations with the PEOPLE who has a duty to implement the so-called Development plans.

In Zimbabwe for example, the concepts of RBM was received at all levels of the Public Sector. The Government adopted all components of RBM but the challenges emerge on the practical implementation of the adopted mechanism. The challenge comes in the form of Authority invested in the Reforms Department to "force" Implementing Agencies to play their part. There is lack of commitment on the part of Implementing Agencies due to several reasons. The popular one is that they lack sense to account for donor funds and public funds.

Yes, Developing countries must dictate which development policies to undertake not donors to impose. I agree. However, no meaningful resultant reports will come from resources used from receiving agencies due to the fact that as a result only funds were exhausted but with no programmed/ intended results.

What is required i think is a radical reform from Governments in Developing Countries to accept reforms as a diagnosis to the current problems. Let them take the bull by the horns and delegate authority to steering committees to punish those not cooperating. The idealistic Development plans should be results oriented and feeding to the national vision crafted through sectoral consultative forums. The donors will never have a problem in ploughing their resources where there is clear picture of seriousness on the part of the Government

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Permalink Reply by Bimerew Alemu on October 7, 2008 at 9:55am

Dear Dr Aru
I am a new comer joining the forum since end of September/2008. I found the discussion very interesting and I am really glad to join such a group. With regards to IDP, if you may have been informed about Ethiopia's experience earlier sorry for repeating that. Let me say something about our development planning. The whole concept of our 5 year development plan is localizing the MDGs (providing an integrated framework for development through the inter-relationships between the Goals); i.e. the MDGs are adapted and integrated to the local context. To elaborate it further the plan bases itself on development programs that already existed earlier and tries to address disparities. With regards to budget we have shifted from budget information system (BIS) to integrating the budgets with expenditures (IBEX) with Regional States.

However, a challenge that remained a missing link or coordination problem of implementation and reporting is cross-sectoral and sectoral integrated planning, especially at local levels. We look forward for your ideas.

Regards

Bimerew Alemu

From Ethiopia

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Permalink Reply by Jeffrey Douglas Tshabalala on June 5, 2009 at 3:26pm

IDP under RBM suggests a systematic approach to the culture of management with emphasis on accountability. My experience in this area derived from my work with UN Country Teams, National AIDS Councils and Partners working in HIV and AIDS programming suggests the following:

1. A confusion between evidence based planning and RBM,
2. Starting and ending with reforming "documentation" around planning with policy and business process transformation,
3. Keeping the status quo around management style, organisational culture and systems.
4. An assumption that reforming "documentation" as stated above is an end itself.

IDP under RBM is a strategy change and business transformation process which requires organisation cultural change underpineed by the demand from the highest leadership in an organisation or country. New Zealand, Singapore, USA, UK etc demonstrate the need for leadership- led change.

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