Institutionalizing Development Planning in Nigeria: Context, Prospects and Policy Challenges

Sustainable economic growth and development is strongly linked to defining developmental needs and deploying resources towards solving same using the instrumentality of national development plans framework especially in a developing economy such ours that is additionally operating a federal fiscal system. The main objective of the research is to review previous planning experience of Nigeria relative to other developing countries and define key initiatives required for institutionalizing development planning model in Nigeria. In the process, five key benefits of planning have been identified; aligning sectoral needs with resource availability, implementing a mutually supporting sectoral development strategy, value for money in public expenditure spent, result based programme budgeting and strengthened fiscal federalism. Pursuant to the need for Nigeria to achieve the goals and objectives encapsulated in the Vision 20:2020 Economic Transformation Blueprint, specific legal, institutional and policy initiatives are required. However, strong and committed political leadership, sustained plan funding and development of a results based national monitoring and evaluation framework are required for a successful reverting to national development planning framework after a 27 years break. Keywords: Development planning, Policy making and Economic Transformatio