Organisational Issues in New Forms of Multi-sectoral Planning

Despite current ideological and philosophical objections to planning, it survives in new forms, generating Policy Framework Papers, Poverty Assessments or Food Security Strategies. The route these follow is littered with organisational elephant-traps; but the traps can be avoided by learning the lessons o f past experiments with multi-disciplinary or multi-sectoral planning. The literatures on integrated rural development, multisectoral nutrition planning, farming systems research, national food security planning, and poverty planning are all o f help. They suggest that the key is to establish a task culture, characterised by co-operative goal definition, a high degree o f participation, supportive leadership, and strong integration o f planning and implementation. A ten point action plan is derived from these principles for new forms of multi-sectoral planning.