The Minister of State for Finance, Planning, and Economic Development (Planning) Amos Lugoloobi announced the National Development Plan IV (NDP IV) strategic roadmap to pitch the country toward double-digit economic growth.
He made the announcement during the National Planning Conference at the Office of the President Conference Hall, in Kampala. The engagement was attended by several stakeholders, ranging from the Head of Service, Permanent Secretary/Secretary to the Treasury, Permanent Secretaries, Planners at both the MDA and Local Government levels, Development Partners, Private sector, and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)
According to Hon Amos Lugoloobi, the goal of the NDP IV is “to achieve higher household incomes and employment for sustainable socio-economic transformation” premised on the theme “Sustainable industrialization for inclusive growth, employment, and wealth creation”.
He therefore noted that the strategic direction was developed to exploit the available opportunities to fast-track the realization of the desired socio-economic transformation aspirations towards the achievement of the qualitative leap and the expectation by the government is that the Fourth National Development Plan (NDP IV 2025/26 – 2029/30) will provide pathways to attaining the much-desired double-digit growth.
Lugoloobi added that the NDP IV strategic direction was also tailored to solve and address the challenges and lessons learned from the previous plans and recommendations, going forward.
“This NDP IV strategic direction is anchored by the desire for consolidation of development gains of past NDPs, accelerated implementation to close implementation gaps in the previous development plans, stronger follow-up, management, and accountability for results plus innovative financing, and deepened private sector involvement in development, cognizant of the local content considerations as well as leveraging all existing opportunities,” he remarked.
In addition, Lugoloobi also said that these will particularly be done by defining transformative approaches to drive faster growth for socio-economic transformation and, most importantly, consolidation of development gains which will include maintenance of the development base in terms of peace, security, and macro-economic stability.
Lucy Nakyobe the Head of Service / Secretary to the cabinet remarked that public service delivery follows a specific process chain, from research to planning, to budget, to implementation, up to evaluation and accountability of results which indeed, the government has, over the years done through several reforms and direct investments in key growth areas to increase access and enhance the quality of public services across the country which has led to improvement in service delivery over the years.
“However, notwithstanding the progress made in service delivery, we have seen and learned that we are still performing short on a number of our development goals and targets, with several challenges persisting that include; slow implementation characterized by lengthy and cumbersome procurement cycles, absence of service and service delivery standards in some instances and poor enforcement of service delivery standards and regulations, ineffective monitoring and evaluation, lack of transparency among others,” she said.
In addition, Nakyobe noted that the government is also faced with a limited budget, and flexibility in light of the various commitments that have been made, and therefore, progress on service delivery needs to come from greater efficiency gains.
“As we go into the final 5 years of implementation of the Global Agenda 2030 (SDGs), which coincide with the National Development Plan IV, and as you have learnt, the Government’s ambition to grow the economy double-digit, we need to address the underlying constraints that impede our full achievement of development goals & targets, and negatively affect service delivery. This will require a major rethink of how we deliver public services,” the Head of Service highlighted.
She therefore noted that the focus will be put towards the selection of a few high-impact-growth enhancing projects, instead of having a consortium of projects whereby prioritization will be undertaken to select a few high-impact projects whose benefits in terms of enhancing household incomes, wealth creation, and job creation for Ugandans out-weigh the costs in terms of invested public funds.
“The NDP-Results framework will be improved to include measurable indicators and those that have reliable data to capture them. Such programs, MDAs, and Local Governments should therefore develop SMART indicators to track their progress of delivery during the plan implementation period as well as planning and budgeting for administrative data and their attendant statistical systems,” she said.
Nakyobe also noted that during this plan period, they will continue to adhere to and implement the PFMA regulations since the Public Finance Management Act 2015 has increased the demand for transparency and accountability in the purpose and impact of the budget and this will help to instill a results culture and ensure MDAs compete to deliver effective services rather than for resources or over mandates.
The National Planning Authority (NPA), is a semi-autonomous national development planning organization in Uganda owned by the government of Uganda with the primary function to produce comprehensive and integrated development plans for the country elaborated in terms of the perspective vision and the long-term and medium-term plans.
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