KAMPALA – The Government of Uganda through the National Planning Authority is set to roll out National Development Plan IV – NDPIV in July 2025.
This was revealed by Amos Lugoloobi – Minister of State for Finance, Planning and Economic Development (Planning) on Wednesday during the NDPIV National Planning Conference.
“As you may all be aware, the NDPIII (2020/21–2024/25) expires in June 2025. This therefore, means that legally, the draft Plan (NDP IV 2025/26 – 2029/30) should be ready by July, 2024 and the final Plan by September, 2024 to inform the country’s macroeconomic framework and budgeting processes for FY2025/26 and the subsequent years.”
The Plan, he said will also inform various Country Cooperation and Assistance Strategies for International Organisations, and Bilateral and Multinational Agencies resident and operating in Uganda.
Lugoloobi noted that the NDPIV is the fourth out of six National Development Plans (NDPs) that are meant to implement Uganda Vision 2040 and the last Plan to deliver the Global Agenda 2030 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the first within the implementation of Government’s strategy for achievement of 10-fold growth.
This Plan, he said is in line with the President’s (Museveni) ambition of growing the economy ten-fold, from USD 49.5 billion as of FY 2023/2024 to USD 500 billion in the next 15 years, in a transformative, inclusive and sustainable manner.
“This Strategic Direction has been developed to exploit the available opportunities so as to fast-track the realization of the desired socio-economic transformation aspirations towards the achievement of the qualitative leap. The expectation by Government is that the Fourth National Development Plan (NDPIV 2025/26-2029/30) will provide pathways to attaining the much-desired double-digit growth.”
Minister revealed that the NDPIV Strategic Direction has also been tailored to solve and address the challenges and lessons learnt from the previous plans and recommendations, going forward.
“Particularly, this NDP IV Strategic Direction is anchored by the desire for: (i) consolidation of development gains of past NDPs; (ii) accelerated implementation to close implementation gaps in the previous development plans; stronger follow up, management, and accountability for results; (iii) innovative financing; and deepened private sector involvement in development, cognizant of the local content considerations and (iv) leveraging all existing opportunities. These will particularly be done by defining transformative approaches to drive faster growth for socio-economic transformation. Most importantly, consolidation of development gains will include maintenance of the development base in terms of peace, security and macro-economic stability.”
Head of Public Services/Secretary to Cabinet – Lucy Nakyobe noted that the Government has, over the years, undertaken several reforms and direct investments in key growth areas, in order to increase access and enhance the quality of public services across the country which “has led to improvement in service delivery over the years.”
“However, notwithstanding the progress made in service delivery, we have seen and learnt that we are still performing short on a number of our development goals and targets, with several challenges persisting. These include: slow implementation characterized by lengthy and cumbersome procurement cycles; absence of service and service delivery standards in some instances and poor enforcement of service delivery standards and regulations in others; ineffective monitoring and evaluation; lack of transparency; disregard for accountability; and a number of development uncertainties and risks, among others,” she said.
With the National Development Plan IV, she said the Government will be able to grow the economy double-digit.
She, however, noted that there is a need to build the capacity of the public service to deliver adequate and quality public services during the NDPIV period.
“You can only demand more from what you have capacitated. Therefore, as Programmes, MDAs and Local Governments design their interventions, capacity building in critical areas of development should be prioritized.”
Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance, Ramathan Ggoobi said;
“Our review of the current fiscal landscape reveals a significant number of ongoing commitments that will inevitably spill over into the NDPIV period, amounting to a tune of Shs358.87 trillion out of the Shs413.206 trillion that is required to finance the 5-year plan. These include; Statutory Wage Commitments; Non-wage employee benefits (NSSF, Pension, Gratuity); fixed costs Operational government expenses (electricity, water, ICT, rent, LG grants, Subventions etc.); and Multi-Year Commitments (ongoing projects). It is important to note that these commitments form the backbone of our national development efforts and cannot be neglected in favor of new priorities. Our fiscal responsibility demands, that we first ensure the completion and continuity of these projects to maintain stability and progress in our developmental agenda.”
The NDPIV goal will be achieved through five strategic objectives including
- Sustainably increase production, productivity and value addition in agriculture, minerals, oil & gas, tourism, ICT and financial services;
- Enhance human capital development along the entire life cycle;
- Support the private sector to drive growth and create jobs;
- Build and maintain strategic sustainable infrastructure in transport, housing, energy, water, industry and ICT; and,
- Strengthen good governance, security, and the role of the state in development.
- The details of these objectives and their respective strategies and actions, are as articulated in the detailed NDPIV Strategic Direction, which I believe was already shared with you earlier and whose contents shall be highlighted to you again.
- As the Head of Public Service/Secretary to Cabinet mentioned in her remarks, a number of delivery approaches have been suggested during the NDPIV planning and implementation periods. These include:
- Strengthening the programme approach that was adopted in NDPIII.
- Deepening, improving and following-up on the Parish Development model to deliver the NDPIV.
- Improving impact of NDP development key actions.
- Enhancing a Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) approach for value chains.
- Promoting value addition analysis along selected value chains.
- Mainstreaming job creation in all development interventions.
- Deepening Regional Planning, Monitoring and Accountability.
- Enhancing a business model for key actions and Government delivery.
- Deepening the quasi-market approach.
- Undertaking Risk-based planning and Implementation.
- Enhancing improvements in factor productivity.
