The National Development Planning Commission has commenced a consultative process to draft the next Medium-Term National Development Policy Framework (MTNDPF, 2022-2025) for the next three years.

The new draft policy framework will succeed the MTNDPF, 2018-2021, also known as “An Agenda for Jobs: Creating Prosperity and Equal Opportunity for All” ends in 2021.

Dr Kodjo Essien Mensah-Abrampa, the Director-General of NDPC, speaking at the Regional Consultation on the MTNDPF, 2022-2025, said the draft policy framework had also been aligned to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), AU Agenda, and ECOWAS protocols that Ghana had signed onto.

He said the process of developing a successor policy framework was in accordance with the Commission's mandate, which was to keep under constant review national development plans in the light of prevailing domestic and international economic, social and political conditions.

He said it was for the Commission to make recommendations for the revision of existing policies and programmes where necessary and formulate comprehensive national development planning strategies and ensure that the strategies which included consequential policies and programmes were effectively carried out.

He said the process of preparing the policy framework, which started in September 2020, nvolved the review of performance of the implementation of the MTNDPF, 2018-2021; identification of key development issues to be addressed over the period 2022-2025; and proposal of objectives and strategies to be implemented over the period.

“The process engaged technical experts from government Ministries, Departments and Agencies Civil Society Organisations and academia, who were organised into Cross-Sectoral Planning Groups,” he said.

Dr Mensah-Abrampa said the COVID-19 pandemic had affected the Country in various ways and had alerted “us to the urgent need for emergency preparedness.”

He said, hence, a whole dimension on emergency planning and preparedness, which detailed a COVID-19 recovery framework, had been introduced in the MTNDPF, 2022-2025.

He said recommendations from a series of National Development Fora, which had been organised by the Commission, since 2018 to solicit public opinion on topical development issues, had been incorporated in the process.

The Director-General said NDPC sought to further solicit the views and inputs of all relevant actors into the zero draft MTNDPF, 2020-2025, hence the purpose of the regional and sub-regional consultations.

He said the consultation was to create awareness on the development goals, objectives and priorities for the country over the next medium term (2022-2025) and solicit ideas and inputs on development priorities for the next medium term.

He said following the consultations, Government and Parliament would also be engaged on the draft policy framework for their validation before the framework is finalized.

Mr Henry Quartey, the Greater Accra Regional Minister, in a read on his behalf by Madam Jemimah Lomotey, the Regional Economic Planning Officer, said the framework provided the basis for national planning and budgeting process.

He said also, planning authorities across the country used the framework to prepare their current development plans with the same time frame of 2018-2021.

He entreated participants to actively engage in validating the issues, proposed policy objectives, strategies and targets of the 2022-2025 framework.

The Minister said once the policy framework was finalized, the Regional Coordinating Council would work closely with all Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies to finalize their respective development plans and subsequently complete the Greater Accra Regional Integrated Plan for the same period.

“Both the District Medium Term Development Plans and the Regional Integrated Plans will have to be implemented comprehensively to ensure the achievement of both regional and national development goals and objectives to support the Assemblies to prepare the required spatial maps for the Medium Term Development Plans, 2022-2025,” he said.