Development plan
WHILE we are all preoccupied with the precautionary and containment measures in respect of COVID-19, it may be of interest to know that we are now in the second half of the first part of the 5-year and 20-year National Development Plan, for the periods 2017-2021 and 2017-2036, respectively.
I wonder if there was a midterm review undertaken at the midway point of the first two and half years of the 5-year plan?
As we all know a mid-term review and other regular and periodic reviews, help in the evaluation and monitoring process of these plans. They help to keep track of where we are and whether we are on target. The midterm review would obviously be the combination of all the annual assessments and evaluations normally undertaken up until then. In this case, that would be up until the end of 2019.
However, COVID-19 quietly and rapidly crept up on the world community, including Fiji from the beginning of the year. Within three months, the whole economic and social structures worldwide was drastically and forever changed. It means for us the “actuals” being skewed away from the plan’s projections, to such an extent that the first part of the plan, may just become a document of “what could have been”.
We are really in unprecedented and extraordinary times and really have uncharted waters ahead. What is needed now is unprecedented and “thinking outside the box” approach, laced with pragmatic, tough and bold decision-making.
While the broad national outcomes in the 20-year plan would not change too much, the strategies, programs and actions to achieve it, will obviously have to be seriously reviewed. They would realistically require paradigm shifts in focus and approach, just to get back on track, moreso, in the recovery phase after the pandemic. The supplementary budget is already a start.
Perhaps, we can console ourselves that we are not alone in this situation. All other countries worldwide, are basically facing the same predicament.
We all need to be in this together and united, if we are to see daylight on the other side of the COVID-19 tunnel we are in. EDWARD BLAKELOCK
Admiral Circle, Pacific Harbour