Government has formulated the seventh National Development Plan (NDP) to be based on an integrated multi – sectoral development approach in each implementation.
Minister of Development and National Planning, Lucky Mulusa disclosed this at the press briefing formulation of the 7TH NDP that would run from 2017- 2021, that a recent Cabinet meeting unanimously approved the 7th NDP to pave way for its actual implementation in line with President Edgar Lungu’s pronouncements on the need for the nation to create synergies between implementing institutions.
“This implies that each province will now know its level of the GDP contribution based on provincial comparative advantages as of enhancing the full potential on the basis of their resource endowment” said Mr Mulusa.
He said the implementation of the 7th national plan had been contextualized in the frame work of the decentralized policy that would enhance all the provinces to contribute to the growth of the domestic product in the country.
He said government had developed five developmental pillars under the theme “accelerating development efforts towards vision 2030 without leaving anyone behind,” that will actualize among other goals the economic diversification and job creation, reduced poverty and vulnerability, and creating a conducive governance environment for a diversified economy.
Mr Mulusa added that the implementation plan would provide impetus for the timely and sequential programme and project monitoring that would ensure value for money, promote fiscal prudence and guarantee targeted interventions aimed ta leaving no one behind.
He said the plan would see a fundamental shift in the manner resources were allocated for enhancing the fiscal decentralization as devolution powers to lower organs that would further result in promoting bottom up approach in development planning.
Mr Mulusa also said the National development plan would see to it that all cooperating partners aligned their country support strategies to the government’s defined development priorities adding that the plan would entrench a culture of holding everyone accountable at institutional and individual levels.
“The government will ensure that all public officers sign performance contract forms in order to account for their development results which will enable them to be promoted, demoted, transferred or discharged from the system”, he said.