[ad_1]
The Planning and Development Commission held a consultative meeting with representatives of the political parties operating in Ethiopia on October 2, 2020, based on the 10-Year Development Plan with a view (2021-2030).
Finance Minister Ahmed Shide; Dr. Fitsum Assefa, Commissioner of the Planning and Development Commission; The Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Eyob Tekalign; Present at the meeting were the Ministers of State of the Planning and Development Commission, Dr. Nemera Gebeyehu and Endalakachew Sime.
Finance Minister Ahmed Shide opened the discussion by saying that the 10-year plan is a joint plan. He highlighted the need for the participation of political parties and said that all Ethiopians are concerned about the Ethiopian question.
Dr. Fitsum Assefa, Commissioner of the Planning and Development Commission, described the draft of the document in the discussion forum. In explaining the origins of the plan established in the original plan document, he pointed out the strategic pillars of the development plan; main development objectives; capabilities; and focus areas. He described in detail the risks and strategies expected to reduce the risk, as well as the monitoring and evaluation system.
Among the pillars of development, in terms of it, is the creation of technological capacity and a digital economy. This pillar includes: laying the foundations for technological competence and building a digital economy; develop and expand the accessibility of information and communication technology; improvement of the information and communication technology service; apply technology to improve productivity and competition; create human resource capacity that adapts to innovation and technological development, among others.
The other pillar is ensuring sustainable growth and financing for development. Among the objectives to be achieved under this pillar are: improving the accessibility of the financial sector in rural areas to embolden the value of public savings; encourage companies and corporations to invest their interest in the manufacturing sectors; building a digital revenue management system; and ensuring financial justice by incorporating smuggling, tax fraud, and the illicit economy into the tax system for some other purposes.
Ensuring the economic leadership of the private sector is also one of the pillars of the outlook plan. This pillar includes designing and applying the private sector development strategy to ensure the sector’s leadership role in the economy; getting local investors, in particular, to focus on critical sectors by creating a conducive investment situation and identifying the support expected from the government; promote quality foreign direct investment; make a cooperation between the government and the private sector that ensures a strong and inclusive free market economy guided by the market principle; and encourage the private sector to participate in the central economic sectors in which the private sector does not dare to participate by establishing new strategies, among others.
In addition, the outlook plan includes the pillar that ensures the reform of the systems. A system in this context, as for the commissioner, is a concept that incorporates public attitude, the role of the government, community interrelations, the institutions that judge the government, and community interaction; laws, policies and strategies established by cultural and religious institutions and laws, as well as the political system.
It is essential to establish a common understanding and vision that can be created democratically between the government and the community and also the political elites. The role of the government in this regard is to create favorable situations that allow the creation of a single bureaucratic structure to improve political and economic integration and accelerate the nation’s development efforts. It is also essential to strive to make educational institutions the source of good citizens.
Ensuring social inclusion and beneficiaries of development, according to Dr. Fitsum, is also a pillar of the ten-year perspective plan. This pillar includes ensuring that women are equitable beneficiaries by including the gender issue in the economic and social sectors; involve women and young beneficiaries in work and property creation; ensure that women and youth have a fair share in political leadership and decision-making; ensuring the development safety net, the expansion of social security and the beneficiary of basic services, among others.
Building accessibility to justice and effective good governance are also among the pillars that support economic growth and development by enhancing a fair, accessible and robust justice service. This pillar also includes legal packages and amendments that effect managerial justice and empower measurability; improve the human resource development system and managerial leadership; as well as efficient and civilized service delivery.
The other pillar of the ten-year perspective plan is to ensure sustainable peacebuilding and strong regional economic cooperation. This pillar includes the improvement of positive peace and the enrichment of democracy; improve social wealth, values and territorial knowledge; enhance legal enactment, security credibility and human capacity, as well as relationships and cooperation; enrichment of the knowledge-based, citizen-oriented business leadership system; expanding the strategic partnership and representative space.
Regarding capacity, the commissioner said that the economic growth registered in Ethiopia so far is due to the construction of infrastructure with the aim of creating a basement conducive to the development of the manufacturing sector and the consecutive expansion of the construction and the sector. service sector.
The productivity-based effort that countries like South Korea and China used as a means to develop, is seen in Ethiopia in the near future. Doubling the productivity of crops in Ethiopia, which does not exceed 24-26 quintals per hectare at the moment, allows increasing crop production by 7 percent.
Upgrading the current production capacity of factories from 50 percent to 80 percent in manufacturing alone can take a long way.
The focus areas of the outlook plan are the development of the financial sector, the growth of the multi-sector economy source, the investment and business area, the local trade and export sector, the population development sector and the human resources, the infrastructure sector, the urban development sector, good governance and the justice sector also as a peace and security sector.
Financial sector development focuses on reform of government development companies; apply sound currency management; strengthen the mobilization of local and foreign resources; strengthen the public and private partnership; strengthen the management of state finances, implement the digital finance system and extend a system to establish the capital market, among others.
In agriculture, the focus areas are separating agriculture from dependence on rainfall by strengthening irrigation capacity; expansion of the mechanization service; improve the production and productivity of small farmers; development of animal resources and development of healthy forages; horticulture; and sustainable agriculture resilient to climate change and others.
The manufacturing industry sector also focuses on the production of competing food, clothing and medicine for local consumption and export trade; improve production and productivity of existing industries; prioritize manufacturing sectors that consume local inputs; strengthen the interconnection and mutual supply of the value chains of manufacturing industries; and enhance the leadership role of the private sector, among others.
Sign up for free AllAfrica newsletters
Get the latest African news straight to your inbox
Mining sector focus areas for its part include improving foreign currency earnings and local revenues; expand investment in the sector; contribute to the economy with added value for the sector; allow the expansion of value-added manufacturing industries; employment creation; and the growing geological data coverage system of the country and others.
Being one of the main income generators, the tourism sector has also played an important role in economic development. The sector’s focus areas are to identify the nation’s tourism assets and develop properly; strengthen the infrastructure of tourist destinations; improve competition by developing new tourist attractions and enriching existing destinations and also expanding the type and quantity of tourism products; creating and increasing new participation in the tourism market through effective linking, branding and market promotion; and improve the provision of heritage preservation and protection services, among others.
Discussion participants expressed their appreciation for having been invited to participate in their country’s plan. They have also raised their suggestions and questions about the content of the document. Among the suggestions, peace, justice, participation of women, unemployment and migration have been raised to receive special attention.
The idea that the 10-year outlook plan seems ambitious is seen as a strength by some participants and a weakness by others. Dr Eyob Tekalign, Minister of State for Finance, commented that it is a plan that can be achieved if Ethiopia uses its full potential.
