Implementation of Strategic Planning in Zimbabwe
IN our last article, we discussed the Human Capital Development and Management Agency which is responsible for recruiting, developing and keeping the right people in the right jobs in Government. This article focuses on the Strategic Planning and Programme Management Agency and what it does.
The Strategic Planning and Programme Management Agency is responsible for ensuring that strategies (clear methods that will be followed) are in place for Government Ministries to deliver services to the people. It ensures that these strategies drive Government programmes in line with the national plan.
The strategies are crafted through the process of strategic planning. The Agency sends its experts to help Ministries, Departments and Agencies, including the Public Service Commission itself, to produce plans that will guide activities that produce the right results.
The Agency checks to make sure that the plans present activities that agree with the benefits that the President created the Ministry, Agency or Department to bring to the people of Zimbabwe. A good strategic plan must show clearly what the proof that those things have been done is, so that the success or failure of public servants in changing the lives of citizens for the better can be seen, can be rewarded or can be punished, depending on what has been produced.
Client Service Charters state clearly what civil servants promise to do for the public. The Charters explain why the Ministry was created and where the boundaries of its activities are.
The Strategic Planning and Programme Management Agency keeps checking to see if the promises made in the Client Charters are being kept, and gives reminders when it seems that those promises have been forgotten.
The Agency helps to shape the Commission’s contribution to the success of public sector reforms as it works with the Office of the President and Cabinet and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development, which together with the Commission, form the Tripartite, whose job is to ensure that the structure, work culture and habits of the public sector are transformed so that Zimbabwe can become the strong and prosperous country it wants to be within nine years or less.
In addition to this, the Strategic Planning and Programme Management Agency performs public service delivery audits across all provinces, checking to see if the results civil servants say they are producing can be seen on the ground.
These results are supposed to be produced through programmes described in the strategic plan, and it is the Agency’s responsibility to make sure that those programmes are being managed to produce the desired results.
The Agency is also responsible for giving information about the Public Service Commission’s decisions, actions and activities in support of Government programmes and projects to stakeholders as well as for promoting public knowledge and understanding of those decisions, actions and activities.
The Strategic Planning and Programme Management Agency does all this through its four departments, namely Strategic Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning; Provincial Co-ordination; Communication, Advocacy, Culture and Change Management; and Technical Communication Services.
Strategic Planning, Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
This department supports Ministries, Departments and Agencies in producing strategic plans that are guided by the national plan. It helps in simplifying methods of finding out how well Ministries and individual civil servants are doing their work, so that it becomes clear whether they are producing meaningful results or not.
Government adopted use of Information Communication Technologies (mainly computers) for managing results. The department helps with the processing of performance information in the whole of Government Performance Management System, which is used to track the performance of Government Ministries.
It checks on how national programmes and projects are being worked on, and gathers information that helps in making decisions.
Provincial Coordination
As part of the New Dispensation’s efforts to make sure that development is seen in every village, district and province, the department of Provincial Coordination, through the Commission’s provincial and district offices, works with district and provincial offices of Government ministries to ensure that services are delivered in provinces and districts with the same seriousness with which they are delivered in towns and cities.
Communication Advocacy, Culture and Change Management
Information on Government’s programmes and projects must be widely communicated to ensure that it reaches the people who should benefit from those programmes and projects. This department ensures this is done through its public relations and information releases to newspapers, radio, television, social media and other means.
The department invites and receives feedback from the public, and communicates it to Ministries and departments which use the information to improve the services they give to the public.
Through this department, the work of assisting our civil servants to show high levels of professionalism, ethics, servant leadership, patriotism, a strong desire to do well, accountability, refusal to be corrupt, willingness to promote the economy, and a commitment to produce high quality results, is carried out as part of the much needed Culture Change, which will promote better delivery of services to the public.
Technical Communications Services
The Technical Communications Services Department is tasked with making sure the Public Service Commission uses modern methods to communicate messages to the public. These methods include the creative use of audio-visual equipment like video cameras, digital audio recording systems and editing machines to produce audio-visual products that communicate messages and information in an interesting, memorable and powerful way.
These video and audio clips can be sent to television and radio stations, and are also posted on the Commission’s website, on social media like Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp, and can be sent direct to individuals.
Government values its workers, and within the PSC there is an Agency that is always thinking of ways to improve conditions of service for these hard-working civil servants. This Agency is the Pay & Benefits Development and Management Agency. Our next article will describe the activities and programmes for which this Agency is responsible.
◆ This article is part of a series of articles by the Public Service Commission aimed at engaging with and updating the public on matters of public interest that fall within its mandate. For comments, enquiries and questions, please write to feedback@psc.gov.zw For more on the PSC and its programmes, visit www.psc.gov.zw or follow on Facebook Zimbabwe Public Service Commission or Twitter @Public Service Commission Zimbabwe