AfricaPress-Tanzania: PUBLIC policy stakeholders met in Morogoro on Saturday to brainstorm on various issues in public policy making and implementation to ensure they meet their intended objectives.
The stakeholders, drawn from different ministries, cabinet secretariat and retired public servants, met at a one-day forum organised by Uongozi Institute to share experience on the challenges in public policy formulation and implementation that affect their effectiveness, to boost growth and development.
The Chief Secretary Dr John Kijazi, who was the guest of honour, said he was delighted that the stakeholders met to address weaknesses in public policy formulation and implementation which is crucial to make the policies work.
The meeting was part of government efforts to reform policy making, he said, adding, that he was optimistic that the forum would improve the process to get better results.
“I hope this forum would help to improve the process in formulation and implementation of public policies,” he said in a speech read on his behalf by the State House Permanent Secretary Dr. Moses Kusiluka.
He said it was important for the stakeholders to follow government guidelines in policy making that provides for an inclusive approach and detailed analysis.
Dr Kijazi said failure in policies were most often due to poor preparations and may lead to low quality of service delivery, unfavourable social and environmental impacts, and often negative consequences on the economy.
Several organisations in public sectors may not also be efficient in implementing programmes unless they are based on appropriate policies, he said.
Uongozi Institute Acting Chief Executive Officer Kadari Singo said the forum followed requests from the government to bring together public policy stakeholders to discuss challenges in the public policy making process and implementation.
He said inadequate analysis of the policies was one of major challenges which lead to failure of the policies to bring the intended goals.
“Some officials do not carry out enough analysis of the policies and as a result the policies fail to meet the objectives,” he said.
Mr Singo said it was important to address the weaknesses in policy making process because the policies involve use of public resources.
“Most often decisions by government leaders commit resources, financial and human. Leaders must be able to manage the resources and it is through well worked out policies that will be possible,” he said.
Acting Clerk to the Cabinet Nsubili Joshua said they came up with the idea of a public policy stakeholders’ forum so that they could discuss challenges involved in policy formulation and implementation process.
“We realised there were challenges in policy making and implementation process,” he told the `africa-press’ on the sidelines of the forum, noting that the meeting was part of the efforts to address them.
“We want to share experience from different ministries, cabinet secretariat and retired public servants and come up with measures to improve the process in formulation and implementation of the policies, he said.
He said the Morogoro forum was the first meeting of the public policy stakeholders’ and plans are to hold stakeholders’ forums annually.
