STATEMENT BY THE RT HON PRIME MINISTER

 

DR B.S.S.DLAMINI

 

AT THE CONSULTATIVE FORUM ON THE

SWAZILAND DEVELOPMENT INDEX

AND GOVERNMENT PROGRAMME OF ACTION

 

AT ESIBAYENI LODGE

 

MONDAY 2 JUNE 2014

 

Programme Director

Your Royal Highnesses

Royal Counsellors

Chiefs

Chief Justice

Honourable Ministers

SMART Partners

Distinguished Guests

Ladies and Gentlemen

 

It is an honour and a pleasure to be with you today and to thank you all for attending this Consultative Forum.

 

The first task in any properly thought-out assignment or programme is to get the planning right. That points you in the right direction, with identified priorities giving rise to the relevant activities that will produce the desired outputs and outcomes at the end of the day.

This applies whether you are starting a business, building a house, or competing in a sporting event. And it is particularly important in Government.

 

We took this approach at the start of the last Administration resulting in a Programme of Action 2008-13 for Government being presented to Parliament and the Nation. The national priorities were identified, targets set and progress was systematically tracked through regular performance reports by Ministries, culminating in the Five Year Report at the end of that Administration.

 

At the Swearing-In of Cabinet at the start of the current Administration I promised that a “development unusual” approach would be adopted. One aspect of this concept is to recognize that the broader the consultation, through sharing information and embracing contributions at the planning stage, the better the quality of the plans. A further aspect of the concept, as was stated at the time, is an intensified approach to implementation.

 

Today and tomorrow, we are all taking part in the planning stage of what is essentially a continuum of planning, target-setting and performance reporting by Government, continuing from where we left off at the end of the last Administration. But it is always important to build and improve on what went before, hence the inclusion of the Swazi Development Index and the planning stage in which this Consultative Forum will play such an important part.

Indeed, we have devoted the past five months to the planning process, which is not an unreasonable length of time given that we are planning for the next five to eight years.

In that planning process the draft definition of first world status, together with the Swaziland Development Index, were prepared by the Office of the Prime Minister in collaboration with the Ministry of Economic Planning and Development. The draft Programme of Action was drawn up by the Policy and Programme Coordination Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister.

 These documents have gone through a number of review stages in Government and now they are before us today at this important Consultative Forum. In the definition of first world status our aim should be to articulate the vision to guide all strategies and activities. In the Swaziland Development Index we have a framework of indicators, and annual targets to match, that will both motivate and measure our progress towards achieving first world status. The Programme of Action will identify what each Ministry has to achieve in that process. It is essentially Government’s work schedule over the coming years.

A considerable amount of work has already gone into preparing these documents. But the ink is not dry! And deliberately so, because of the valuable part you will all play in helping to finalize them.

We have embraced the SMART Partnership approach in this Forum because the egalitarian, round-table participatory approach of SMART partnership is a tried-and-tested dialogue mechanism that has taken an established place in our system of broad national consultation.  There are presentations and there are break-out group discussions, with plenary sessions for all to share the synthesis of the group suggestions.

We are blessed with a very broad range of stakeholder groups from members of the Royal Family, to chiefs, to counselors, members of Cabinet and senior ranks of the Civil Service and regional administration, security chiefs, the Judiciary and Legislature, church leaders, representatives of civil society, including women’s and youth groups. And we have the unions and the media. That is quite a gathering!

We are at the start of a new Administration of His Majesty’s Government. The planning stage has taken us five months but we have not been idle in that time, having already done a great deal of work as part of implementing the Programme of Action. But we have much still to do. When we close this Forum we expect to have a shared understanding of the way forward. In a nutshell, you will have been briefed about the draft definition of first world status, the draft Swaziland Development Index and the draft Programme of Action for this Administration, and had an opportunity to discuss these and make your comments and your suggestions.

 I wish you the most fruitful discussions and look forward to sharing with you the way forward when we meet again tomorrow at the end of this Consultative Forum.

 

Thank you.