Current Practice: Existing Country Level Frameworks

In most countries, there is a range of past and existing strategic planning approaches at national and decentralised levels. Many of these have been externally conceived, motivated and promoted. Few of them have adopted or built on the systems, processes and practices that have operated in the country for some time. Very few countries have developed a specific or overarching strategy for sustainable development, and specifically labelled it as such, and indeed, this is not necessary. When seeking to strengthen the effectiveness of country’s planning framework for sustainable developments, it will be important to build on what exists, thus starting by identifying the existing processes and initiatives in a country. This chapter gives an overview of existing country planning frameworks.

National level strategies

There is a strong tradition in most developing countries of preparing periodic national development plans, often covering a five-year span. Usually, line ministries prepare sector chapters following guidance issued by a national planning commission or equivalent co-ordinating body. Such plans tend to set out broad goals and include projects and activities to be funded from the annual recurrent and development budgets. Economic, or occasionally social, imperatives have been predominant. These plans tend to be linked into the annual budget or to the medium term expenditure framework (MTEF) – a three-year rolling budget process.

In the past, there has been little civil society or private sector involvement in developing or monitoring such plans. But there is increasing evidence of stakeholder participation in these processes in a number of countries as, for example in Thailand (Box 7). There is also greater use of environmental screening mechanisms (although usually to screen out certain bad impacts, rather than to optimise environmental potential).

Connected to these planning instruments, line ministries prepare sector-wide plans and investment strategies. Examples include transport, agricultural, health and education strategies. Many countries also prepare cross-sectoral strategies. Examples include strategies for reducing HIV/Aids or for improving rights for women. Cross-sectoral environmental strategies include Coastal Zone Management Plans, and the Bangladesh Flood Action Plan in the early 1990s which led to the more participatory development of a National Water Plan. Many environmental strategies respond to the Rio Conventions, such as Biodiversity Action Plans and National Action Plans on Combating Desertification. Responsibility for the preparation of these plans has often been given to environment ministries. Similarly, national forest programmes are in progress to implement proposals for action of the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests.

Some governments responded to Agenda 21 by giving renewed attention to, or building on, the mainly environment-focused national conservation strategies (NCSs) and national environmental action plans (NEAPs) that were developed in the 1980s and early 1990s. Subsequently, a range of countries have prepared national Agenda 21s to set out how they will translate Agenda 21 into action at a country level. These strategies are often developed by National Councils for Sustainable Development (NCSDs), a multi-stakeholder participatory body, existing in more than 70 countries (Box 3). Their status varies from region to region (they are very active in Latin America, moderately so in Asia, limited in Africa) but, where they exist, NCSDs have sometimes played an important role in promoting dialogue and participatory decision-making processes. They have the potential to play a similar facilitating role in developing strategies for sustainable development - although they will need to broaden out from their primary environmental focus to cover the social and economic stakeholders more fully.

An increasing number of countries are developing national visions for sustainable development often supported by UNDP’s Capacity 21 programme. National visions bring together different groups of society, including those of different political parties, to agree common development objectives. Examples include Ghana, Tanzania and Thailand (Box 6).

Many countries have focused on strategies to reduce poverty. For example, Tanzania developed a Poverty Alleviation Action Plan in 1996, Uganda’s Poverty Eradication Action Plan was developed in 1997, and Zambia prepared a poverty alleviation strategy in the late 1990s. These plans were of varying quality. The best were truly cross-sectoral strategies to address poverty with clearly budgeted priorities. Others however tended to be a list of social sector investment projects.

The Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF) was introduced by the World Bank in October 1998, and launched in January 1999, as a concept for an holistic approach to development, and proposed in January 1999 to be piloted in a number of countries. The CDF is intended to take a comprehensive approach to development. A key element of CDF is to encourage a long-term strategic horizon of, say, 15-20 years. It seeks a better balance in policy-making by highlighting the interdependence of all elements of development - social, structural, human, governance, environmental, economic, and financial. It emphasises partnerships among governments, development co-operation agencies, civil society, the private sector and others involved in development. Of particular importance is the stress on country ownership of the process, directing the development agenda, with bilateral and multilateral development co-operation agencies each defining their support for their respective plans.

Within this framework, the World Bank and the IMF subsequently launched in September 1999, a process of Poverty Reduction Strategies for low income countries. Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) are country-written documents detailing plans for achieving sustained decreases in poverty. Initially required as a basis for access to debt relief in Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC), PRSPs will be required by all IDA countries as of 1 July 2002. The stated goals of poverty reduction strategies are that they "...should be country-driven, be developed transparently with broad participation of elected institutions, stakeholders including civil society, key development co-operation agencies and regional development banks, and have a clear link with the agreed international development goals - principles that are embedded in the Comprehensive Development Framework" (Development Committee Communique, September 1999). Guidance for CDF and PRSP explicitly supports building on pre-existing decision-making processes. Governments developing PRSPs and external partners supporting them have taken advantage of this is many cases, although in some it has taken time for the implications of this approach to be understood.

Sub-national strategies

In many countries, there are strategic planning frameworks at provincial and district levels such as district environmental action plans (e.g. Box 4) and Local Agenda 21s (Box 5). Under decentralisation, districts and municipalities increasingly are assuming devolved responsibility for sustainable development and are required to prepare and implement their development strategies and plans – increasingly through participatory processes, as in Bolivia. However, the skills and methods to undertake decentralised participatory planning are frequently lacking or weak, and the finances to implement plans are inadequate. Often such plans need to be passed upwards for harmonisation and approval at regional and national levels, as in Ghana and Tanzania.

Local-level strategies

In developing countries, there is considerable experience of village planning. Increasingly, such planning is being undertaken in a strategic, participatory and transparent manner. In Tanzania, the HIMA (Hifadhi Mazingira, conserve the environment) programme and the Tanzakesho (Tanzania tomorrow) programme help wards (3-5 villages) to prepare plans through identifying major problems, solutions and sources of required resources. In Nepal, under the Sustainable Community Development Programme, CBOs have been trained to develop community plans reflecting shared economic, social and environmental priorities.

A variety of local-level strategies are developed through mechanisms which are largely ignored by central government, but which could provide extremely important local pillars for a sustainable development strategy and its supporting co-ordination system. Some involve traditional fora in which communities and local groups are able to express concerns and agree actions to create culturally-appropriate sustainable societies, such as the traditional khotla system of village meetings in Botswana, and Maori hui meetings in New Zealand.

NGOs often mobilise local energies to combine socio-economic development and environmental conservation at the grassroots level.  For example, in Northern Pakistan, the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme is now the leading organization supporting rural development. In Bangladesh, wetland systems have been successfully managed in recent years by NGOs working with the Department of Fisheries. Resource user groups can also  play an important role. For example, in Nepal, over the past 40 years, some 9000 forest user groups have assumed responsibility from government for the sustainable management of parcels of national forests and play an important role in sustainable development in remote villages.

Convergence and links between national, sub-national and local strategies

The CDF, PRSP, national visions and local-level planning initiatives encompass a significant number of the principles set out in Box 2. They also demonstrate the potential for convergence of approach with the concept of a sustainable development strategy.

Often there are several such initiatives ongoing in a country. It is therefore critical to ensure greater convergence around the principles of strategic planning, ensure complementarity and coherence between national level strategies and ensure that the links between national and local level planning are developed effectively.