By Vernon Muwema
USAID Local Impact Governance Project in conjunction with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development and the Policy Monitoring and Research Centre (PMRC) have embarked on a move to simplify Integrated Development Plans for Eastern, Central and Muchinga Provinces.
This is in a bid to make the documents easily understood by communities who are key players in the development of their respective districts in the said provinces following the implementation of the decentralization agenda by the government of the republic of Zambia.
The Simplified versions of respective Integrated Development Plans will contain features that will enable communities to easily relate with its contents such as cartoon scenarios and grammatical expressions that can be easily understood by a common person besides being translated in local languages.
Directors of Planning, Social Economic Planners and Communications Officers from 8 districts in Eastern Province among them Chasefu, 11 districts from Central Province and 3 district from Muchinga Province have since converged at Chalimbana Local Government Institute for a working session to form a citizen’s version of their Respective Integrated Development Plans using the newly formed templates.
Once formulated, the IDPs are expected to see active involvement communities in implementing its contents as it will be used as a reference point for the approval of CDF projects.