Ghana’s Development Planning And Implementation Challenges

NEWS COMMENTARY ON GHANA’S DEVELOPMENT PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES

At independence in 1957, Ghana was one of the shining stars in Africa. The Economic literature posits that Ghana was the world’s leading producer and exporter of cocoa and exported 10% of the world’s gold. Ghana’s per capita income was at par with South Korea and it was comfortably placed among the club of middle income countries. The bright and promising star of Africa, however, did not maintain its glory for long. Ghana’s economic woes started in the 1960s orchestrated in part by political instability and corruption. Since Guggisberg’s ten-Year Development Plan from 1920 to 1930, Ghana has prepared 19 development plans to help address economic development challenges. Seven of the development plans were stipulated within the Fourth Republican democratic dispensation. National Development Planning Commission, (NDPC) was created with the mandate to advise the President on development planning policy and strategy. The NDPC initiated the process of preparing a long term development plan and in 2015 launched a 40-year National Development Plan for the country to provide a framework for national development which would be binding on successive governments. This has however been suspended.

Without good implementation, plans will accumulate dust and their intended purpose will never be accomplished. The major challenge that has historically faced the development of this country is not the inability to formulate good and credible policies and strategies but rather the weak capacity to implement these policies and strategies effectively and sustainably. It is important to emphasize the fact that the implementation of many national plans was truncated mid-way through the plan period. This was often due to poor implementation strategies, the paucity of resources after initial investments and political expediency.

The basic difference between Ghana’s experience and those of Malaysia, South Korea and Taiwan has been the consistency with which they implemented their plans compared to Ghana’s plans which were characterized by discontinuity and poor implementation. In September 2015, world leaders adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs to replace the Millennium Development Goals. The indicators and targets of the SDGs as well as the Africa Union Agenda 2063 have been integrated into a new Ghana’s Medium-Term National Development Policy Framework which will be implemented from 2018 to 2021. The Ministry of Planning has also launched the maiden Indicator Baseline Report for tracking the SDGs in Ghana. This must not end as a mere activity to fulfill United Nation’s requirement but the indicators must be carefully tracked and translated into realistic targets and implementation strategies that will impact on the lives of the people.

The NDPC issues Medium-Term Development Plan Preparation Guidelines for the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies, MMDAs in accordance with the National Development Planning System Act 1994, Act 480.  The Guidelines often do not include a detailed procedure for implementation, so most of the plans prepared in the country often end up on shelves. It is time for NDPC to move beyond the issuance of policy guidelines to MMDAs to undertake initiatives that relate directly to local economic development. At the MMDAs level, some poverty reduction interventions have had no meaningful impact on the people because of poor planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The MMDAs must periodically evaluate medium-term development plans to enable them determine the impact of the implementation strategies.

The evaluation must be based on the outcome and impact and not only on output or the physical presence of projects. Lack of such evaluations has led to the situation where many projects of MMDAs have become white elephants and have no impact on the lives of the people especially the unemployed, under-employed, children, women, the aged, people living with disabilities and HIV/AIDS who are highly at risk. Ghana has to follow the East Asian giants by changing resource endowments and comparative advantages to a more skilled and knowledge intensive system by investing more in human resource development. Policy-makers must prioritize and implement value-added interventions involving investment in education and skills training. In spite of the development challenges, Ghana must regain confidence in the capacity to plan and deal with obstacles to progress and collaborate with all development stakeholders to build a New Ghana. This New Ghana requires strong commitment on the part of leaders and stakeholders to convert the popular will into action to reconstruct the development path towards the attainment of the SDGs and the Africa Union Agenda 2063.

BY: ERIC AKOBENG, AN ECONOMIST AND DEVELOPMENT POLICY EXPERT.