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The Planning and Development Commission has said that preparations for the economic and development plan with a 10-year perspective have been finalized and that it will enter an implementation phase next month.
Fitsum Assefa (PhD), Commissioner for Planning and Development, told reporters on Thursday that after six months of public consultations and preparations, the 10-year plan is about to be implemented following approval by the Council of Ministers (CoM).
The Commissioner’s briefing focused on the activities carried out by the commission during the first quarter of the current fiscal year. He said the plan is about to be split to have two five-year plans and annual goals.
The outlook plan was revised multiple times over the course of 20 rounds of consultative workshops, Fitsum said. Some 3,000 questions and comments have been referred to the commission and absolute and comparative economic advantages have been identified across the country, and regional states have prioritized their areas of potential development opportunities. They have created their own regional economic accounts, Fitsum said.
Noting the recently designed monitoring and evaluation system, the commissioner said that new software and an application have been developed so that, based on key indicators, each government agency and reporting entities are evaluated in the achievement of the objectives achieved. Score sheets have been introduced into the system.
The new outlook plan, according to Fitsum, allows the civil servant to fully focus on assigned tasks rather than political agendas. She stressed that they will be evaluated on their merits rather than their political leanings. Furthermore, infrastructure and development projects will no longer be executed without the proper approval of the feasibility, environmental and social studies commission. This regulatory power has been granted to the commission.
The new economic plan pursues universal electrification and clean drinking water in a period of ten years. It intends to become a USD 2,200 per capita income state while maintaining an average annual GDP growth rate of 10.2 percent. Mechanization, irrigation and agricultural financing are some of the main approaches that are emphasized to help substitute imported food products from local productions.
