He said there is need for citizens to be involved in setting the developmental agenda of the country regardless of their social status. SECRETARY to the treasury Fredson Yamba has called on government institutions and stakeholders to join hands in developing the Seventh National Development Plan in order to attain the vision 2030.
Mr. Yamba was speaking at the official opening of the GRZ-CSO National Symposium on Sustainable Development organized by the Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) in Lusaka.
Mr. Yamba said the symposium is meant to examine the development trajectory and take stock of the various global and local development initiatives with a view to be better informed as the country embarks on the process of developing the seventh national development plan.
“There is need to engage all stakeholders in order to build consensus on how we plan, implement, monitor and evaluate development programs focusing on our goal of being a prosperous middle income nation,” he said.
He said there is need for citizens to be involved in setting the developmental agenda of the country.
Mr. Yamba further explained that government’s resolve is to embrace all parties in the consultative process during the development planning process which he said is a principle policy matter contained in the national planning and budget policy.
He further added that Government has emphasized on the need for this plan to adhere to the budget credibility, subsidiarity in program design and implementation, equity and transparency by providing for fair measures in the distribution of resources and the need to strengthen institutional accountability for development results.
Mr. Yamba said the Fifth and Sixth National Development Plan and the Sixth revised National Development Plan defeated the all-purpose of how a sector should be because of the multiple sectors which were created.
“They all tended to operate on ministerial thematic lines rather than institution that were built on broader inter-linkages,” he added.
He said the results from the previous national development plans have not been as expected due to challenges faced in the control of natural resources especially in producing energy.
Speaking at the same symposium during a question and answer session, Consumer Unity Trust Society (CUTS) representative Simon Ngona wondered why there has been a failure in program implantation.
And in response, Mr. Yamba said that each ministry must reactivate their sector advisory plans in order to make it easy to implement certain plans.
The CSPR in conjunction with the Ministry of Finance yesterday organized a joint symposium to discuss socio-economic development processes and achievements in an open dialogue.
The symposium is aimed at discussing and reviewing progress made in implementing key strategies, policies and lessons learnt from Zambia’s performance on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).