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Themes
of the review
Status of development
strategy work
Current development
efforts and direction in Ghana, reputed to have completed the first development
plan in the world in 1919, are being implemented within the overall framework
of the Ghana-Vision 2020 (1994) under which the country is to achieve
a balanced economy and a middle-income country status and living standard
by the year 2020.
Other integrated development
programming processes include the Comprehensive Development Framework
(1999) and the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF
1997) that was based on the Common Country Assessment (CCA).
Key cross-cutting
strategic approaches developed to ensure sustainability of the national
strategy for development cover decentralization, poverty reduction, natural
resource management and gender.
Context of national
development frameworks
All strategic development
frameworks in Ghana are national. However, regions and districts prepare
their development strategies and plans under the decentralized planning
system within planning guidelines derived from the Vision-2020 overall
policy and strategic framework.
In terms of political
context, the last decade has witnessed the emergence of democratic institutions
as political liberalization finally caught up with economic liberalization
a decade later. The transition to multi-party democratic governance is
one of the key development trends ands factors that have influenced the
design of strategic frameworks for national development. Others include:
(a) the pain and memory of past economic downturn, (b) the resultant economic
liberalization and market-based stance of economic policy which has yielded
a fragile stabilization as the economy is still prone to destabilization
by external economic factors, (c) relative national peace and stability,
(d) increasing population, unemployment, demand on social services and
fall in living standards, (e) poor natural resource management resulting
in loss of forest cover and general environmental degradation.
The administrative
context for the development of national development strategy frameworks
in the post-ERP era involved the establishment of: (a) organs for economic
management, (b) an emerging consultative approach, (c) a development planning
system including a legal framework and a planning institution (the NDPC),
(d) a decentralized planning system. Despite this economic management
and development-planning environment, major donors felt the need to design
their own frameworks for development assistance planning, partly in response
to ineffective donor coordination and integration of donor development
programmes. This situation partly accounted for the development of the
CDF and the UNDAF.
The effectiveness
of regulations and incentives determines the nature and effect of the
institutional context for the development of strategic initiatives. Broadly,
in consonance with the progressive consolidation of economic and political
liberalization, the approach to internalizing economic and environmental
costs, to facilitate best-practice investments, is by fiscal and regulatory
frameworks, rather than bureaucratic control mechanisms. The institutionalization
of parliamentary and multi-party democracy, decentralized administration,
and, increased public awareness campaigns is facilitating the development
of a consumer or civil-society driven society and incentives away from
command and control to market-based mechanisms.
The development of
the current Second Medium-Term Policy framework and plan of Vision 2020
has taken due cognizance of regional factors as it explicitly seeks to
enhance the economic integration of the sub-region.
Strengths and
weaknesses of Vision 2020
Vision 2020 is akin
to an umbrella process that provides a broad vision of long term development
goals, the big picture within which complementary strategies (such as
GPRS and RNRS) can be identified as tools towards achieving the broad
picture of the Vision, and the overall setting for the evolution of the
institutional framework within which sector strategies and programmes
are developed and integrated.
Strengths
Compared with the
CDF, CCA, and the RNRS, the Vision 2020 framework: (a) is the most comprehensive
development programming exercise; (b) is more of a strategic mechanism
than most of the other; (c) defines the programmatic strategies required
to achieve long-term goals; (d) takes the long-term view; (e) has provisions
for strategic steps to achieve the vision (First Step, Second Step, etc);
(f) has provisions for periodic review; (g) covers all the sectors needed
to make a vision sustainable (economic, social, NRM, governance, gender,
etc); (h) utilizes a participatory process of preparation
Weaknesses
Assessed against the
elements identified in the Draft OECD-DAC Policy Guidance for country-level
strategies for sustainable development as necessary for a strategy process
to achieve sustainable development, Vision 2020 is characterized by several
areas of weakness. These include the following: (a) There is no overall
and integrative model that integrates macroeconomic, sectoral, spatial/physical,
and, financial aspects of planning. (b) It does not specify and agree
on trade-offs in integrating the various pillars of the framework, such
as environment, social and economic issues. (c) There was no scenario
analysis to form the basis for strategy formulation and there has been
no analysis of external linkages. Hence, the exercise is less than strategic.
(d) The framework does not provide ways of dealing with constant change
on the path to achieving the goals of the vision. (e) Long-term policy
objective priorities are not necessarily reflected in public resource
allocation and incentive structures.
Key stakeholder
and processes
There is no unique
steering mechanism for overseeing the preparation of the various strategic
frameworks as each adopted its own mechanism. Regarding Vision 2020,
the NDPC has oversight responsibilities for preparing, coordinating, implementing
and monitoring the medium-term plans and strategic plans. Constituted
as Cross Sectoral Planning Groups (CSPGs), a very wide variety of governmental,
non-governmental, private sector and civil society groups have been involved
in developing the First and Second Step Policy Frameworks. The preparatory
mechanism utilized by the NDPC involves the CSPGs preparing draft policy
frameworks, the Commission reviewing and finalizing the medium term development
policy framework and issuing planning guidelines to inform the actual
preparation of development plans and strategies.
A similar structured
approach has been adopted for steering the preparation of the Ghana Poverty
Reduction Strategy (GPRS) whereby the coordination and oversight responsibilities
for its preparation have been ultimately entrusted to an inter-ministerial
coordinating group via the Poverty Reduction Unit of the NDPC. The CDF
was formulated by 14 Sectoral Coordinating Groups (SCGs) comprising ministries,
agencies and development partners. The formulation of the RNR Strategy
involved six steps, was based on Goal Oriented Project Planning (GOPP)
approach and involved a wide array of stakeholder groups.
Some issues of
integrating institutions and initiatives
Linkage with
global conventions: The development of Vision 2020 framework for
long-term development was not linked explicitly to global conventions
such as on biodiversity, climate change, desertification, and the Law
of the Sea, but these issues (except that relating to the sea) were considered
by the CSPGs in integrating environmental concerns into the framework
and medium-term plans.
Inter-relationships
between current processes: Opportunities exist for complementarities
among the various strategic approaches and for integration between them
because the Ghana Vision 2020 provides the guiding framework for several
of the current strategic processes while at the same time incorporating
many of the processes directly within its framework. Regarding the Ghana
Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS), its objectives informed the goals and
approach adopted for poverty alleviation in the Vision 2020 while the
revision of the GPRS is being undertaken within the framework of the preparation
of the second medium term plan of the Vision 2020. The core development
ingredients of the CDF and UNDAF have been adequately captured under Ghana
- Vision 2020.
Aspects of enabling
institutional conditions: Despite efforts at enhancing the participatory
nature of strategy development, the top-down mentality persists in development
programming. For example, the District Assemblies (DAs) were not represented
in the Cross-Sectoral Planning Groups that prepared the Frameworks, as
their role was limited to receiving and complying with Planning Guidelines
from the NDPC after the preparation of the Frameworks. Similarly, the
DAs were not involved in preparing the CDF and the CCA.
Country development
framework coordination: Regarding the Vision 2020, coordination
between the NDPC and MDAs in the preparation of medium-term policy framework
has been fairly effective since most MDAs participated in the development
of the frameworks. However, coordination between the NDPC and the MDAs
regarding the preparation of sector strategic plans by the latter has
been less than effective as the MDAs often prepared their plans with little
input from NDPC or notification to NDPC of their intentions and arrangements.
Coordination between
strategic initiatives, particularly between Vision 2020 and the CDF and
CCA has been at the level of ensuring consistency among the objectives
of the various initiatives. However, since the CDF and CCA are of shorter-term
duration than the Vision, it is not clear how the milestones in these
two donor-driven initiatives relate empirically to the Vision 2020 targets.
A clear case of less
than adequate coordination exists between the institutions responsible
for strategic initiatives and those for finance and investments. Public
finance programming develops a life of its own that is often unrelated
to programmed requirements. Although Ghana adopted a medium-term expenditure
framework (MTEF) in 1999, this system is yet to be synchronized with Vision
2020.
Monitoring:
The NDPC has developed monitoring formats to collect feedback information
but is unable to implement this system, as it expected the agencies and
Assemblies to regularly submit monitoring information. Furthermore, most
of the indicators developed to monitor the First Step framework were implementation
steps or output variables keyed to the Action Plans and could not be used
to track progress on achieving the main Vision 2020 goals and targets.
Shared vision
and commitment to strategy process
Political support
for Vision 2020 is more partisan than broad-based, the citizenry is unaware
of the contents of the Vision or what it takes to achieve it while the
private sector feels that agreed outcomes at consultative forums it participates
in are not being effectively implemented as the environment for private
sector growth remains weak. In terms of continuity of political commitment
to the Vision 2020, it is not clear what the likely attitude and posture
of the new government would be.
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