The Ministry of Planning and Development and its accountable institutions have reviewed the implementation of the plan for fiscal year 2015.
The Ministry of Planning and Development and its accountable institutions reviewed the implementation of the Fiscal Year 2015 Plan on August 15, 2023, at the premises of the Institute for Policy Studies. The Ministry and the three accountable institutions presented their annual performance to the forum.
Officials from the Prime Minister's Office participated in the review and provided feedback on the report. H.E. Dr. Fitum Asefa, Minister of the Ministry of Planning and Development, as well as the Ministry's State Ministers, senior executives, and experts from the Policy Studies Institute, Ethiopian Statistical Service, and the Environmental Protection Authority, participated in the day-long discussion on the review.
The Ministry of Planning and Development presented its report on institutional implementation capacity, resource utilization, and improvement of service delivery, ensuring quality economic growth and overall prosperity through development plans, building economic analysis, modeling and forecasting capacity, producing economic accounts and statistical data, and establishing and updating a digital monitoring and evaluation system for development plans. He explained in detail that targeted measures had been implemented.
The Ministry of Planning and Development pointed out in its report that effective climate change prevention and population measures had been implemented in the current fiscal year.
The Ministry also stated that the plans and reports submitted to the different institutions in different ways followed the concept of one plan and report.
In response to the comments and questions about the report, the State Minister of the Ministry of Planning and Development, H.E. Dr. Nemera Gebeyehu, said that the presentation of the report was different and better than before. He pointed out that the performance processes should be explained in more detail than just expressing them in percentages. He pointed out that a clear benchmark should be applied when developing plans in order to know their results.
H.E. Mr. Sandokan Debebe, the State Minister of the Ministry of Planning and Development, said that climate change is an issue that should be included in the plans of all institutions and that this will be done by focusing on ways to run the economy along with climate change ideas.
H.E. Mrs. Tirumar Abate, the State Minister of the Ministry of Planning and Development, also said that the Minister of Planning and Development has taken many actions at the regional and federal levels to build capacity, although this is not mentioned in the report.
In its annual performance report, PSI said that the institute had identified a large number of research agenda, made various research proposals, and authored working papers, policy briefs, journal articles, and policy documents. The report also stated that PSI had worked extensively on institutional visibility.
During the discussion on the review of the plan, H.E. Prof. Beyene Petros, Director General of the Policy Studies Institute, said that the concept of "one pan - one report" should be reconsidered as one method may not be appropriate for all institutions.
Professor Beyene also pointed out that there seems to be a mandate confusion among different organizations nowadays, mentioning that PSI was established to research public policy, but many organizations work on the same aspect. He said that this overlap and confusion about the mandate clearly need to be investigated.
Prof. Beyene also pointed out that all public policy research conducted by other institutions must be reexamined by PSI before being submitted for approval. Prof. Beyene also pointed out that PSI must have its own clear program in order to effectively carry out its mission and urged the ministry officials to give him conceptual clarity on programs and subprograms.
H.E. Mr.Teferi Tiaru, Deputy Director General of PSI, told the Prime Minister's Office delegate and the Ministry officials that the former PSI building was not conducive to work; however, after many efforts by researchers and top officials of the Institute to renovate and refurbish it, the current building is very conducive to conducting research.
He also pointed out that these days, after PSI had invested a lot in the building, the Ministry of Transport and Logistics asked PSI to leave the building as the Ministry claimed that it belonged to it.
H.E. Mr. Teferi Tiyaru urged the delegate of the Prime Minister and the officials of the Ministry of Planning and Development to stop this illogical demand of the Ministry. He said that any attempt to move the headquarters of PSI from the current building will be considered an act of dissolution of PSI. A delegate from the Prime Minister's Office and officials from the Ministry of Planning and Development said they were in favor of PSI.
H.E. Dr. Fitum Asefa mentioned in her closing remarks that the ministry was focusing on building the system. She said that during the year under review, effective work was done in terms of policy harmonization to address legal and policy inconsistencies. She stressed that the research work done by accountable institutions should be in the interest of the government’s needs and priorities.
During the discussion, the government's medium-term development and investment plan (2016-2018) was presented and discussed.