ABSTRACT
A stable and sustainable source of funding for a NSDS is vital. It is preferable that financial provision for supporting a strategy is made within the country’s recurrent budget. This will give it more chance to become a continuing process. Securing a legislated mandate for the steering committee/council increases the chance of such budget provision. Many past strategies have failed because they have been funded by government or development cooperation agencies as one-off initiatives or projects. This has tended to sideline them so that they cannot influence budget decisions; and has constrained timeframes for developing and implementing strategies, undermining the establishment of participatory, multi-stakeholder processes (as it takes time to build trust, confidence and commitment to engage, as well as to consult stakeholders’ constituencies). Also, in the past, there has been limited appreciation of the realistic timescales required to establish and sustain effective strategic planning processes.
