The Government of Zambia, cooperating partners and other stakeholders have reviewed the performance of the Seventh National Development Plan (7NDP) as at Mid-Term.
Officiating at the validation meeting of the 7NDP Mid-Term Review Report at in Lusaka, Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet for Finance and Economic Development, Christopher Mvunga said the undertaking of the mid-term and terminal evaluation of the 7NDP are cardinal in assessing the extent to which implementation of planned projects and Programmes have contributed to the attainment of desired development results in the National Vision 2030.
Mr Mvunga said the Government is gratified by the strong partnership that exists between Government and its partners in the national development planning coordination mechanism, which is based on principles of participatory and integrated development without leaving anyone behind.
“Since the 7NDP has a five-year implementation period from 2017- 2021, it was planned that midway through its implementation, a mid-term review would be undertaken,” Mr Mvunga said.
“The 7NDP Monitoring and Evaluation framework also stipulates that ‘plan implementation and impact will be evaluated at mid-term and at end-term.”
He explained that the mid-term evaluation involved an analysis of both process and impact of the plan, to generate evidence to inform the implementation during the remaining period of the Plan and also guide strategic focus and implementation of future development plans.
“The evaluation was commissioned by the Government, supported by the United Nations and was conducted by independent entities with competencies in evaluation of national development plans,” Mr Mvunga said.
He said the lessons learned from the review will inform Government and stakeholders on what has worked well, the shortcoming encountered and what needs to be done to improve the implementation in the remaining period.
“The Government was confident that the findings of the 7NDP Mid-Term Review will give even more impetus to push implementation, provide an opportunity to learn from what works and improve on the shortcomings, if any, through the key recommendations that will be made by the independent review. This will help the country to optimise the possibility of achieving the set targets in our development plan,” said Mr. Mvunga.
“As the 7NDP is nearing its end, the findings in the Mid-Term Review will also form the basis for the development of the successor plan or the eighth National Development Plan (8NDP).”
He said the review will also provide input into the design of future national development plans.
And Ministry of National Development Planning Permanent Secretary for Development Cooperation Monitoring and Evaluation Danies Chisenda said the Mid-Term Review is intended to bring out lessons that can help policy makers and implementers to make necessary changes that could lead to improvements in plan implementation.
“The Planning and Budgeting and the National Monitoring and Evaluation policies prescribe the necessity to undertake monitoring and evaluation of national development plans in order to ensure that the plans deliver the intended outcomes and that the coordination and implementation mechanisms are robust enough to ensure attainment of envisaged outcomes and impacts at the end of the plan period,” Mr. Chisenda said.
“The 7NDP Mid-Term Review process was, therefore, necessary and it was coordinated by the Ministry of National Development Planning in collaboration with a multi-sectoral reference group consisting of experts from the various line ministries, academia, research institutions and civil society as the multi-sectoral reference group was appointed by the Secretary to the Cabinet.”