Thinking about national plans

The last decade saw the revival of national plans in African policy parlance. Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania are amongst the list of countries who revitalised their planning efforts and brought national plans back to the heart of their national policy agendas. Most of these plans aim at charting the trajectory for the low-income country in question to achieve ‘middle-income status’. Developing a national plan that outlines the envisaged growth path of all major socioeconomic sectors of the economy, along with a possible allocation of budget and the identification of priority sectors/investments, is an intricate policy exercise. The sheer number of stakeholders to be consulted and the possible overlapping of topics make it mind-blowingly complicated.