Moldova's National Development Plan Open for Public Debate

For the last several years, anyone interested in understanding the Moldovan national development priorities and objectives, has been referred to the famous Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (EGPRSP), developed with the support of the World Bank. There is an entire site dedicated to this document. Initially, the Strategy was intended for 2 years (2004-2006) but due to already unsurprisingly poor implementation and unavailability of any other national development planning document, it was extended for 2007. However, starting 2008 Moldova will have a new document, the National Development Plan, which is currently in the making.

On June 26, the draft NDP – mainly the product of line ministries and governmental institutions – was brought out for public debate at a National Forum. It can be found on the same EGPRSP website. It is good to see the Government initiate a broad so-called “consultative process” regarding the national development concept and selected development priorities. While the EGPRSP was a sector-based strategy with a multitude of priorities, the NDP is a priority-driven and goal-oriented document. The five proposed priorities are: 1) consolidation of a democratic, modern, rule-of- law-type of state; 2) solving the Transnistrian conflict and country’s reintegration; 3) enhancing competitiveness of national economy; 4) human capital development; 5) regional development.

In my view, these priorities are adequate for a mid-term (2008-2011) national development document, and manage to capture the areas, which – if left unattended – could hinder the country’s development for another decade or so. The ways in which problems in these priorities areas are proposed to be addressed should be the real focus of public debate before the adoption and then implementation of the NDP. Also, various public and private (both for-profit and non-profit) stakeholders should study the draft NDP, identify their role in, and start preparing for the future implementation process.

...And the debate has already started. Andrei Popov on his blog says that the draft NDP is more of a technical rather than strategic document, its most important shortcoming being the fact that Moldova's development concept lacks any connection to the external environment, perpetuating isolation and self-centeredness. Given Moldova's accute vulnerability to external political and economic ups and downs, dependency on external funds for development, as well as European integration aspirations, this indeed appears as a serious strategic shortfall that needs to be remedied.

Moldova to Develop a National Development Plan

The President of Moldova announced that starting next year the Moldovan government will begin working on a 4-5-year national development plan. I took this as good news as I’m not very happy with the current national document that everyone refers to as Moldova’s major development plans: the Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy. This document is narrow in scope and, as the title suggests, its aim is far from setting national development objectives, priorities and guidelines. As a result, Moldova has had no national development plan, which means that development throughout the country has remained largely unplanned, unaccounted for, and thus stagnant. And this is a big problem, which is finally starting to draw some attention.

The regional development policy, slowly but surely taking shape within the Ministry for Local Public Administration, is another approach to the same problem. Addressing regional underdevelopment through targeted public investment programs and support to regional and local capacities is a practice that has worked successfully in many countries, including EU, US, Japan. However, I noticed a high level of resistance to regional development in Moldova. Skepticism and distrust are the attitudes that people most commonly display regarding the Moldovan regional development policy in making. In my view, this resistance is based on lack of information and misunderstanding of the concept itself, as well as on the general distrust towards any governmental policies. I see it as a big challenge for the Moldovan government to try to regain people’s support, and persuade the public opinion about the positive outcomes of its development policies.