Strategic Network: New National Planning for Sustainable Development in the Global South

Completed

Not Energy Related
Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Environmental, social and economic impacts)

Basic and strategic applied research

SOCIAL SCIENCES (Economics and Econometrics)
SOCIAL SCIENCES (Politics and International Studies)
SOCIAL SCIENCES (Development Studies)
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences)

Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Policy and regulation)

Dr A Chimhowu
Environment, Education and Developmen
University of Manchester

Standard

ESRC

02 January 2017

01 July 2018

18 months

£131,978

North West

Global Challenges Research Fund

Dr A Chimhowu, Environment, Education and Developmen, University of Manchester

Professor N O Ary Tanimoune, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada
Professor S B Feresu, Research, University of Zimbabwe
Dr L Hinojosa-Valencia, Earth and Life Institute, Catholic University of Louvain
Professor D Hulme, Environment, Education and Developmen, University of Manchester
Dr S M Maimbo, UNLISTED, The World Bank, USA
Dr LT Munro, International Dev & Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada
Dr C Napoleone, INRA Centre d'Avignon, INRA - Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Centre
Dr B Sen, UNLISTED, Bangladesh Inst of Development Studies
Dr S Ssewanyana, Research, Economic Policy Research Centre

Project Contact, University of Ghana
Project Contact, University of Ottawa

On 25 September 2015, all 193 UN member states committed themselves to a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Unlike the Millennium Development Goals, that were by and large top-down in the way they were planned and reflected the priorities of donor countries, the SDGs will be implemented through locally driven plans that reflect the priorities and contexts of individual UN member states. Many DAC-list aid recipient countries will struggle to achieve the SDGs unless they come up with credible and fundable plans for growing their economies in ways that are inclusive and environmentally responsible. This proposal to the Global Challenges Research Fund (Strategic Networks) addresses the challenge faced by developing country governments in preparing and implementing national development plans that can manage the forces of globalisation in ways that can achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.This multi-disciplinary Strategic Network on New National Planning seeks to better understand how seven developing country governments have revived and are trying to promote national development objectives while remaining embedded in a globalising economy, where shocks and risks as well as opportunities and innovations reverberate quickly around the world. By bringing together experienced academics (with backgrounds in Planning, Geography, Finance, Management and Development Economics), and leading practitioners with field experience across the globe this strategic network will pursue four key objectives namely:1. To identify and analyse the key elements of the new national planning. An important element of this objective will be the development of a typology of recent national development plans. While some of this material has begun to emerge from our initial scan of the primary and secondary data, much more work is required to conceptualise and understand the key influences and characteristic features of the new national development plans.2. To understand the paradigmatic significance of the new national planning and how it is shaping both development theory and practice. The focus here is on trying to understand the concepts and processes that underpin the production of these plans, the context in which they are produced, the methods and evidence used in plan production and the key actors and their roles.3. To analyse the relationship between the national development planning process and development outcomes in the short- to medium-run. Through a content analysis of plan documents from 100 countries and casual process tracing in seven selected DAC-aid recipient countries, we will understand if particular types of plans and particular processes for producing plans are more likely to lead to better development outcomes.4. Establish and nurture a new research and knowledge network on the role of new national planning' in inclusive development. Here the aim is to create a knowledge platform and learning community to drive a research agenda on the new national planning. It necessarily will bring together academics, policy practitioners, NGOs and donors who all have a common interest in enhancing the quality of plans for the achievement of SDGs.5. To create academic and policy exchanges and learning across linguistic and cultural borders by networking researchers and policy makers in English, French and Spanish speaking countries in the global south. This is particularly important, given the different planning traditions in countries of different colonial and other histories.

SummaryThis initiative addresses a key challenge faced by developing country governments as they seek to achieve the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals agreed in September 2015. Many of these countries are seeking to guide their own development through a set of processes, policies and practices that can usefully be termed the 'new national planning'. Following an era of often ritualistic national planning, the 1980s and 1990s saw the very idea of producing national development plans as discredited. This was partly due to a lack of local ownership and commitment to plans produced, but also due to donors and international financial institutions promoting more market and less state centred ways of achieving development goals. While the 2000s saw the return of something approaching a comprehensive policy framework for development in the form of national Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), there is now evidence that national development planning has firmly come back into vogue. Our initial research shows that over 100 countries, a majority of them in the global south (including many of the largest and fastest growing), have a national development plan or similar document. These are usually very different from the formalistic national development plans of the 1960s and 1970s and involve much greater use of measurement, evidence and modelling. This is a renewed interest and belief in National Planning albeit in a very different globalised context characterised by unpredictability and complexity. The Sustainable Development Goals will be implemented through locally driven plans that take into account this global complexity and uncertainty and yet reflect the priorities and contexts of individual UN member states. Planning approaches cannot therefore be the same as before and indeed our preliminary dataset is showing the emergence of new ways of planning that strive to cope with uncertainty and complexity.This new national planning has attracted little research interest, yet there is growing evidence that it has implications for how countries respond to the global and local challenges confronting them. Little systematic mapping of national planning processes and outcomes has been done and there is limited understanding of the processes shaping the new national planning at the national or global level. Neither the World Bank nor the UN, for example, have assembled comparative studies or datasets. More importantly, some crucial questions are emerging not least related to whether this new national planning produces better national ownership, accountability and ultimately better development outcomes than did either the PRSPs or the previous generations of planning (or non-planning). Our partnership will investigate this topic through a cross-disciplinary research/practitioner network and will strengthen capability for research and innovation across seven ODA recipient countries. We will establish a multi-disciplinary network of scholars, practitioners and policy makers who will analyse and better understand this re-emergence of national development planning in the global south. This strategic network on the 'new national planning' will create a new research and knowledge community that understands how national planning helps governments to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals in an era of complexity and uncertainty brought on by combined effects of forces of globalisation and climate change. The network will analyse development plans and create: an analytical framework for comparing plans; a detailed database of this new generation of plans; (at least) seven detailed case studies of the new national planning in ODA countries: and, a comparative analysis of National Planning in the 21st Century. The network will bring together policy makers, researchers and other development actors to identify key areas for future research and actively seek funding to establish a major applied research programme.

03/01/18