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A lot of the Second Republic’s success started with the decision to take development planning seriously, making sure that all the right bits were in place when needed and that everything could move forward together, without sudden bottlenecks and the like appearing.

After transitional planning, to get the country moving forward and overcoming the worse of the inherited disorder when the Second Republic was initiated in 2018, the target of an upper-middle income country was set, and the first of the two detailed medium-term strategic policies, the National Development Strategy 1 for 2021 to 2025 inclusive was launched.

This gave the main policy direction right across the economy, and in a switch from previous attempts at planning gave defined milestones for all key economic indicators, as well as a range of very practical targets, such as how many schools were open and had electricity, or how many kilometres of highway were fixed.

Previous attempts at planning had largely been ignored, the plan just being a “feel good” product, or had quickly been so overtaken by events that it was irrelevant.

NDS1 was built on reality, where Zimbabwe, the good and the bad, was at and an appreciation of the resources available. And NDS1 emphasised results, the targets, allowing a lot of flexibility in just how those targets would be met.

There was a lot of input from a lot of sources, but the main reason for combining everything into a single strategy would have been the conditional nature of the input.

That is, it would be possible to meet such and such a target if three other targets were met in other sectors. And those targets could only be met if targets in yet other sectors were met, and so on. All this had to be connected.

Being target driven meant that frequent auditing was simple. Was a target met or not; was it exceeded or did we fall short, and if so by how much.

With all that early learning it was frequently possible to see where some of the implementation tactics needed to be changed to meet the overall strategy, or be able to work out what was needed after a surge ahead in one area that could then be imposing strains on other areas.

The combination of hard targets and flexible tactics has meant that most targets have been exceeded, in good years and bad years, and that Zimbabwe’s economy is in sustained growth.

Even with the worst drought for many years, our economy will still grow two percent this year, showing the increasing underlying strength available.

Part of the strength has been the inclusiveness of the growth. When the vision is an upper-middle income economy that means that a substantial majority of the population must be in upper middle income households, and any falling short should be very close to that level, and those above, who will always be a minority, just help push up the average.

The colonial creation of a small minority who were upper middle-income solely because of a racial set up that allowed less than five percent of the population to control most of the wealth and resources, while the majority were categorised as destitute, subsistence farmers, or just above, is not an economy that is going to grow.

Preparations are now in progress to draw up the second five-year medium-term plan, building on NDS1. And National Development Strategy 2 will obviously have the same ultimate target as Vision 2030, that upper middle income economy and society, although NDS2 will have all the detailed final targets, as well as the intermediate and auditable targets for 2026 to 2030 inclusive.

Work has already started on the planning, as the Cabinet was told this week by Minister of Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion Professor Mthuli Ncube when he presented the roadmap to Cabinet.

The plan has to contain strategies and interventions to ensure sustainable inclusive growth and development, innovation for modernisation and industrialisation, adaptation to climate change, eradicating poverty and promoting sustainable livelihoods of the vulnerable members of society, as was stated after the Cabinet meeting.

But it also needs to be built on fact, on the reality on the ground, otherwise it is just a wish list that may or may not mean very much.

At the moment the Finance Ministry is pushing a serious economic census, with work on that starting in May this year and running to June next year.

That will make sure that when the inputs are put together and the targets are set, they are set on the basis of what is actually there. It should also reveal the areas where more work is required.

Many will be asked for inputs, within the Government and within the private sectors and from academia and civil society.

Considering the importance and effectiveness of the planning model adopted, and which we have seen with NDS1, we would expect that those asked for their inputs, views and ideas will make sure they do that seriously.

The Government is obviously in charge of drawing up the overall plan, and that level of coordination requires the central Government control.

But many can have a say if they are prepared, and ready to argue from fact rather than wish lists and so they too should prepare.

They should also ensure that the correct information is being gathered in the economic census, that is they should not be hiding anything or giving inaccurate information.

Business representative bodies have tended to become less important in recent years, and this seems a good time to make sure the sector and sub-sector representative bodies are built up so they can make sensible interventions and can represent their sectors.

They used to be able to do this and need to be able to do that once again.