Edgar Brandt
Windhoek-The projects identified in the fifth National Development Plan (NDP5) require N$164 billion in monetary terms to be implemented and are expected to be funded from a multitude of sources, such as government budgetary allocation, private sector funding, funding from development finance institutions, institutional savings, public-private partnerships (PPP), and where viable, donor funding.
“To this end, the National Planning Commission has started with the organisation of the popularisation campaigns for the NDP5 to create public awareness about the national priorities and to bring on board possible investors for funding, especially in the identified economic projects,” says Deputy Minister of Economic Planning Lucia Iipumbu.
Of the total estimated cost of N$164 billion to implement NDP5, N$73.3 billion, or 45 percent of the total required investment, will go towards physical infrastructure expansion and modernisation in sectors, such as water, energy and ICT.
N$32 billion, or 19 percent of the required amount, will go towards social development social protection, sanitation, housing development, land servicing, youth empowerment and sports development, while N$30 billion, or 18 percent of the total required amount, is required for human capital development, such as investment in education, health and nutrition.
A further N$19.4 billion, or 12 percent, is required to enable structural transformation, while N$7 billion (four percent) is the estimated required investment for the promotion of good governance, such as the promotion of public service delivery and transparency, effective implementation of decentralisation, the preservation of peace, security and rule of law.
The remaining N$2.6 billion (two percent) is required for environmental sustainability and management, as well as climate change mitigation.
In total, the NDP5 Implementation Plan has 80 programmes that are to be implemented through 178 projects over the next five years.
Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, Iipumbu noted that NDP5’s Implementation Plan does not only set the required investment, but sets annual targets that will be used to monitor progress on implementation.
“The NDP5 Implementation Plan will be the primary consideration in decision-making on government budget allocation. Therefore, offices, ministries and agencies need to prioritise the projects that are in the NDP5 Implementation Plan to ensure the alignment of the national budget to the national development frameworks,” Iipumbu explained.
She continued that progress on NDP5 projects would be assessed on a quarterly basis, where all the institutions responsible for implementation of a particular project will be required to submit a comprehensive progress report to the National Planning Commission.
NDP5 consists of two volumes, the policy document that sets out the priorities of the country and the Implementation Plan that outlines the financial requirements and the implementation modalities.
The NDP5 policy document has four pillars each with one goal. Pillar 1 is Economic Progression with the goal of achieving inclusive, sustainable and equitable growth; Pillar 2 is Social Transformation with the goal of building capable and healthy human resources; Pillar 3 is Environmental Sustainability with the goal of ensuring the sustainability of the environment and; Pillar 4 is Good Governance with the goal of promoting good governance through effective institutions.
Under the four pillars, 34 focus areas were identified and serve as priority areas for the country for the five years.
“The goals that we have set for ourselves to achieve in the next five years, therefore, require our collective effort, commitment and hard work to fully achieve our targets. The NDP5 Implementation Plan is therefore a tool to indicate the targets to be achieved each year for every identified project, where these targets will form the basis of monitoring and evaluation,” Iipumbu added.
“It is, however, important to note that the identified 178 projects are at the higher level (national level) and will therefore need to be interpreted as such. For example, in the Implementation Plan, you will only find one project on roads construction, but this project includes all the roads that will be constructed countrywide over the NDP5 period,” Iipumbu said.