ABSTRACT
Most national development plans have now shifted from a philosophy of central planning to one of ‘creating enabling conditions’, to accommodate a degree of voluntary and civil society action, which contributes to partnership and the implementation of strategy. This approach, and some of the planning infrastructure set up for it, is conducive to NSDSs. Applying the principles and elements of NSDSs (Boxes 3.1 and 3.2), and bringing together the systems in Figure 3.2, could result in national development plans offering much that is required for NSDSs. Attention would especially have to be paid to developing shared, multi-stakeholder visions of development goals, and to broader criteria for making trade-offs.
