The Economic Planning Unit

The strategic management process can be described as an objective, logical systematic approach for making major decisions in an organization. Strategic planning process is a systematic way of performing strategic planning in the organization through initial assessment, through analysis, strategy formulation, its implementation and evaluation. This strategic planning become a deliberate process in which top management would formulate and create a complete strategy and how organization will implement that strategy successfully.

Economic Planning Unit (EPU) - Public Organization

The Economic Planning Unit is the principal government agency responsible for the preparation of development plans for the nation. The unit was established in 1961 as the Economic Secretariat of the Economic Committee under the Executive Council of the then Federation of Malaysia. Its objective then was to “focus on development planning, on major problems in plan execution and on all forms of foreign aid”. In that year, the Government also established the National Planning Development Committee with the Economic Planning Unit as its secretariat. While the Cabinet continued to retain the ultimate responsibility for planning in the country, the National Development Planning Committee was assigned the responsibility for the formulation, implementation, progress evaluation and revision of development plans. Since its establishment almost 43 years ago, EPU functions have remained primarily unchanged although it has taken on additional functions in consonance with the changing emphasis of development policy.

Based on EPU function and responsibilities, EPU used The Logical Framework Approach (LFA) for formulating and preparing development programmers and projects. This method strongly recommended to apply LFA in preparing good project proposals that can achieve targeted outcomes at the Ministry and national level. LFA is an analytical, presentational and management tool which can help planners (management) to :-

• analyze the existing situation during project/ program preparation
• establish a logical hierarchy of means by which objectives will be reached
• identify the potential risks to achieving the objective
• establish how outputs and outcomes might best monitored and evaluated
• present a summary of the project in a standard format

The LFA consists of 2 phases- the Analysis Phase and the Planning Phase. The Analysis Phase consists of 4 steps - stakeholder analysis, problem analysis, analysis of objective and strategy analysis. Figure 1 shown the Logical Framework Analysis.

[pic 1]

              Figure 1 : Logical framework approach

Based on this 4 steps of LFA, it is important to emphasize that effective development planning should be approached as an interactive process. For example, while stakeholder analysis is presented here as coming before problem analysis, in practise, stakeholder analysis is on-going throughout the design process, and does not neatly fit in to any one step. EPU should apply this as logical designing the project not as formulated in the policy written on "Pekeliling".

The result from the analysis formulating above, it's can seen that there are 3 components that can be identified:-

1. Upgrade and better manage the Hatcheries
2. Improved Pond Management and training and incentives
3. Better processing and marketing and training and incentive

The next step is to evaluate to see which of the strategy will be chosen to be implemented, given the constraints of resources or other factor. Once this is decided, the next step is the planning phase where the Logical Framework Matrix (LFM) is constructed. This method will summarizes what the project intends to do and how, what the key assumptions are, and how the output s and outcomes will be monitored and evaluated.

The implementation and resource schedules can also be used to further detail when key activities are expected to take place and this could be given in the appendix. The LFM has 4 columns and usually 4 or 5 rows, depending on the number of levels of objective used to explain the means-ends relationship of the project.

The vertical logic identifies what the project intends to do, clarifies the causal relationships, and specifies the important assumption and uncertainties beyond the  project manager's control (column 1 & 4). The horizontal logic defines how project objectives specified in the project description will be measured (column 2 & 3). This provides the framework for project monitoring. The figure 2 below show the structure of the matrix and indicates the general sequence for completing its component parts.

[pic 2]

Figure 2 : LFM structure & sequence for completion

Once the project description and assumption have been drafted as column 1 & 4, the next step is to identify the indicators that might be used to measure and report on the achievement of objectives (column 2), and the source of that information (column 3).

Activities are often better defined and established during implementation by the management team. Because one reads across the matrix when analyzing indicators and means of verification, this is referred to as the horizontal logic.

The horizontal logic of the matrix should be used as a means by which to :

• test the clarity of objective statements
• indicate the type of information required and how it could be collected
• provide a framework within which project implementers can design the detailed element of the monitoring and evaluation system once implementation commences
• helps determine the scope and scale of resources that will be required to establish and maintain an effective monitoring and then include these resources in the project design and budget.

The LFM can be used for preparing implementation, resource and cost schedules. All ministries submitted  this LFM to EPU using the online e-application module through the SPP II. Project related information such as project background, project explanation, target groups, project benefits, project justification, scope, location, project costs, cash flow and staff information can be accessed through SPP II. EPU used this application to monitoring the project/program.