Policy and Planning department is responsible in preparing, coordinating, monitoring and evaluating development projects/activities in the district, so as to ensure attainment of social and economic development goals both at national and council level. This is the leading department under planning process where the District Planning Officer is the District Council budget manager. The department in collaboration with other departments is the one that initiate planning sessions and ensure guidance are issued to the head of departments for effective planning. Planning approaches and methodology which have been in use for couples of years is the Opportunities and Obstacles to Development (O&OD) approach as it was emphasized by the government as the result of policy reforms of Decentralization by Devolution whose process started in the beginning of 1998. This planning methodology emphasizes community participation in the planning process since it is participatory in its nature.
During planning process, international agreements and national guidelines and goals/objectives are taken into consideration during the planning seasons, example Development Vision 2025, SDG, MKUKUTA and others goals and targets are efficiency considered as they form the basis for planning. The documents contribute to the attainment of the Council social-economic development objectives which will lead to the
attainment of the National goals. Other relevant statistical data was collected, analyzed and distributed to the Heads of departments for effective planning and decision making.
With regard to projects coordination, monitoring and evaluation, a multidisciplinary team has been formed at village and ward level for the purpose of ensuring effective coordination, monitoring and evaluation of the development project under implementation. Village and Wards monitoring and evaluation reports are
discussed in their respective Village Council Committee and WDCs and resolutions are forwarded to Council for further action. Again for strengthening effective monitoring and evaluation process, at District level, the District Council formulated multidisciplinary CMET through UNICEF initiatives who attended 14 days training on Monitoring and Evaluation at LGTI Dodoma. The team proved to be effective in doing Monitoring, Evaluation and reporting. The team repots form the basis for Quarterly Progress
Implementations reports, Council Development Report (CDR) of which all are discussed by CMT and other District Council forums for further management, decisions and actions.
However, recently the District Council uses the outdated Social Economic profile which ended on the financial year 2011/2012, this document need to be reviewed /updated. The Department has the plan to review and prepare new Social Economic profile during the financial year 2016/2017 as per 2016/2017 Medium Term Expenditure Framework. Also, the planning department coordinates preparation of the Council Investment Profile (CIP) but recently the District Council does not have it. The CIP could be usefully to different stakeholders and Council for further identification of potential investment opportunities that will contribute to the increased Council own source income through increased investment that will lead to the attainment of the Council goals.
The department prepared project write ups for development and investment projects, the write ups include:Construction of Njombe District Council Hospital, Project proposal for Njombe Business Complex Centre
and Project proposal for Construction of Mulunga Tea Factory. The Business Complex project was submitted to PSPF likewise the Construction of Njombe District Council Hospital project was submitted to Ministry of Finance for funding considerations but up to now no funding at all. Furthermore, the papers for Strategies for own source/revenue increase for period of 2012-2015 was prepared to allow investment with interested partners/investors.With regard to staffing, the Department has five professional Economists, one Secretary and one Driver who are involving heavily with daily departmental activities. The department is headed with DPLO possessing Master Degree in Agriculture Economics. Moreover, the department has the deficit of two
professionals that are one Statistician and One Economist.
The ere are problems affecting the effective performance of the department includes:
Limited development budget accrued from own source funds/revenues due to insufficient own sources funds/revenues hence lead to poor project implementation and follow-ups.
Inadequate reporting and record keeping skills confronting departments, villages and ward development committees that affects timely reporting hence lead to asymmetric information.
Inadequate staff under planning department including statistician.
Lack of Monitoring and Evaluation software for effective reporting and record keeping.
Outdated Council Social Economic profile which does not provides information that reflects the current social-economic situation hence affects planning process.
Absence of Council Investment Profile (CIP) that could foster social-economic development and services delivery through Public Private Partnership (PPP) and stakeholder’s interventions.
Delayed development grants disbursement from the Central Government for implementation of development project. However, sometimes the said funds are not disbursed to the Council at all without any reason. In some cases, if disbursed are of small amount. This lead to either delay or no implementation at all.
Untimely implementation of scheduled projects due to heavy rainfall resulting to the delayed project completion.
Poor community participation of the scheduled development projects due to fact that, one village may have more than one project to be implemented consecutively hence failure to participate and contribute effectively.
Failure in project completion due to uncertainties specifically for projects that are
Implemented by contractors with the supervision of consultant e.g. Ukalawa water project.
Failure to conduct Annual and Mid Term Review of the prepared SP for the period of 2011/2012 –2015/2016. This contributed to poor linkages between MTEF and SP hence resulting to increased number of the uncompleted projects. This has also contributed to the implementation of the projects without knowing annual performances.
Generally one challenge noted to affect community who are primary beneficiary is that of determining political driven projects (infrastructures which are practical needs) rather than strategic problems/needs e.g. HIV/AIDs issues, Gender Based Violence and others.
