District Strategic Planning - Advantages and Limitations

Strategic planning provides a long-term vision, it is more than simply the sum of all village plans. The strategic plan focuses on development potentials and how best these can be tapped in the long-term. The plan provides a bold attempt to vision the district or region’s future, whereby realistic but nevertheless ambitious objectives are defined. The strategic plan provides a basis for politicians and communities to discuss how best they can tap the existing development potentials. The plan requires a consensus to be achieved between politicians, the communities and the administration. The plan guides both medium and short-term investment so that the long-term objectives can be achieved.

Compromises between political wishes, community needs and requirements and private sector interests may not be "bridgeable" in the long-term. The long-term vision may seem "impossible" to achieve and may thus frighten decision-makers from making bold decisions. Active participation of all communities is difficult to organise and expensive task. Community participation may cause expectations to rise, many of the expectation can only be achieved in the long-term. Communities may prefer short-term immediate benefits rather than longer-term benefits, this will influence their choice of the district strategy. The strategic plan may simply become a desk study and it may not be used regularly as an input into medium and short-term plans.