The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business 
Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

Prime Minister Perry Christie said yesterday it was a “damnable omission” that the Bahamas was only now seeking to create a National Development Plan in its 41st year of independence.

Speaking during the Plan’s launch at the College of the Bahamas’ Harry C Moore Library, Mr Christie said itwould guide government policy over the next two decades.

Of the plan, dubbed ‘Vision 2040’, Mr Christie said: “It is a damnable omission for us to be at this stage in our Commonwealth’s history talking about a national plan.”

He described it as a necessity, and said the process would “revolutionise the Bahamas for generations to come”, guiding government’s policy decisions primarily with respect to the economy.

Referencing the Bahamas’ “brain drain”, Mr Christie said: “Some of our good minds are not coming back home. We need good minds to remain in the Bahamas, and we need the best minds to be a part of our work and guide the Bahamas into the future.”

Mr Christie said a sustainable Bahamas requires a long-term vision, and that a National Development Plan cannot simply be Nassau-centric but must encompass the entire country.

“We must magnify the strengths of our Family Islands and the strategic role they play in developing a renewed and sustainable Bahamas,” said Mr Christie.

The prime minister said planning would be useless without access to proper data. “To ensure that we implement strategic evidence-based planning and analysis, the Government is working with the IDB to strengthen our data collection and statistics capabilities. We are focused on ensuring that the data we collect is so valuable that it would be demanded by policy technicians as the basis for evidence-based policy and planning,” he said.

Dr Nicole Virgil-Rolle, director of the Ministry of Financial Services, who will head the economic development planning unit, said there will be a three-phase approach to the National Development Plan, which is expected to be completed in June 2015.

Phase I, which began in October 2014 and runs to February 2015, involves the creation of the evidence base and analysis. Phase II, which begins March 2015 and runs to April 2015, involves the vision and strategy creation through five workshops on visions, national goals, outcomes and the monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.

Phase III, which runs from April 2015 to June 2015, will involve the revision and completion of the National Development Plan.