A writer, a philosopher, a scientist, a politician, a patriot, an inventor, publisher, and a founding father of the United States of America, Benjamin Franklin, once observed that "If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!" Indeed, this is consistent with our own long-held view and popular adage which says "how well one lays his bed determine to a large extent how much he/she will enjoy the sleep". It is in the light of these truisms that effective planning has been considered as an essential pre-requisite for achieving success in any national development efforts.
A carefully crafted national development policy framework, with the appropriate choice of policies, programmes, and projects, well-sequenced and implemented will lead to desire social and economic development outcomes. A poorly crafted policy framework, on the other hand, leads to difficulties in implementation, wastage of resources, both human and financial, and ultimately poor development outcomes.
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