Arend Kolhoff
Technical secretary
The NCEA issued an advisory review of a strategic planning exercise that was developed and implemented by SNV Zambia.
Significant details
The Commission noticed in her advice that the strategic planning exercise is still a fragile experiment for the following main reasons: (i) it seems difficult to achieve ownership of the strategic process by the district authorities; (ii) the manual is not guiding the process resulting in different approaches concerning the exercise; (iii) the shift in objectives of the exercise from planning for SNV towards district planning hampers the on-going process; (iv) it is doubtful if the desired integration of aspects in all involved districts will be achieved ; (v) community participation and stakeholder involvement is filled in differently in the considered districts.
The strength of the Zambian exercise is that local staff at district level is involved in the practical planning and this is a low-cost flexible approach, which can be best characterized as planning by doing. It is expected that the strategic plans for the selected districts will become available in spring 2000.