CAPACITY OF THE PLANNING AGENCY AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN

The Economic Planning Unit or EPU of Malaysia and the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board or NESDB of Thailand play a major role in determining the direction of the country's development through national development plans. Clarity of the planning organization's policies, procedures and processes related to plan formulation, execution management and monitoring and evaluation.

Introduction and Background of the Problem

Does the capacity of the central planning agency have an impact on various development outcomes? The conceptual framework - the development plan implementation evaluation model - is proposed to assess the capacity of the national planning agency.

Significance of the Study

Using this type of research and the application of the qualitative method, testing the independent variables could modify the theories through detailed descriptions (Creswell, 1998; Yin, 1994). The qualitative data was quantified to examine the extent of the capacity using qualitative data analysis software - ATLAS.ti version 8.4.19, qualitative data analysis software.

Definition of Terms

National Development Plan
Institutional Arrangements
Institutional Linkages
Stakeholder Management
Strategic Planning
Knowledge Management
Writing Skill
Interaction
Research Design
Political Stability
National Development Plan Implementation Effectiveness

Institutional arrangements are defined in this study as the policies, procedures and processes available to the planning organization to formulate, implement, monitor and evaluate the results of the national development plan. Organizational capacity is defined as the ability to manage resources internally and with self-renewal.

Scope of the Study

This study considers that implementation is a functional part of planning where the power of the planning authority, planning and budgeting, and the competence of planners, the planning process and the implementation mechanism matter. With the available time and limited funding, this study was not able to fully investigate the entire planning and implementation system of the cases studied.

Research Questions

The timeline of the study is from 1998 to 2016, covering Thailand's eighth to eleventh NESDP and Malaysia's seventh to tenth parliamentary group. Similarly, in 2018, the NESDB changed its name from the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board to the Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council, or NESDC.

Expected Benefits of the Study

In addition, there may be other variables that affect the effectiveness of the implementation of the development plan, such as public administration and social characteristics. Therefore, the Malaysian participants in this study occasionally referred to MEA and EPU interchangeably.

Why Thailand and Malaysia

The King of Malaysia is the head of state. State governments are headed by a chief minister. Seventh is related studies and eight is a discussion of the independent variables and moderator variables in this study.

Theoretical Overview and Approaches to Planning

Theoretical Development of Planning
Five-Year National Planning
National Development Planning
Development Plan Implementation
Development Plan Implementation Evaluation
Planner ’ s Knowledge and Skill : Relevancy in Development Planning and

However, the relationship between the planning agency and the rest of government is usually well-defined, which affects the effectiveness of implementation (Waterson Formalization of the implementation mechanism. To evaluate a plan, evaluating the relationship between the plan and the actual outcome is appropriate.

Organization Theory

The organizational environment consists of all the elements outside the organization's boundary that potentially affect all or some parts of an organization. Instead of choosing one continuum, organizations choose to decentralize some parts of the organization while maintaining decision-making power in the middle to ensure control power at the top.

Capacity and National Development Planning

However, contextual factors such as global pressure, governance and politics influence the redefinition of the organization's capacity. Program management is the ability to develop and administer programs in a way that supports the organization's mission.

National Five-Year Development Plan Implementation

Development Plan Implementation: Organizational Perspective

The bureaucratic implementation approach relies on bureaucracy as a means to transfer thoughts, resources, and physical assets and to monitor development. The values and interests of development partners, stakeholders and actors are taken into account.

Conception of Development Plan Implementation Approach

On the one hand, the implementation of the national development plan still requires a bureaucracy that provides the mechanism and power to control the actions of actors in the implementation system to mitigate the effects of deviation from the goals. Planners take the lead in creating a mutual understanding of national goals in the future and what and how development strategies will be adopted, what the country will look like in its best case, and who will be responsible for various actions.

Planning Organization Capacity and Development Plan Implementation

At the organizational level, strategic management is an effective tool for keeping the parts of the organization in line. However, to maintain and improve the quality of the workforce, the adaptive capacity, which is reinforced by the organization's knowledge management system, increases the ability of self-renewal.

Development Plan in Practice: Thailand and Malaysia

Thailand ’ s National Economic and Social Development Plan

In 2017, under the administration of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, “the draft 20-year national strategy BE. In general, the implementation of the five-year national plan in Thailand has two stages.

Malaysia’s Development Plan Implementation System

Although the long-term plan serves as a guide for the medium-term and short-term plans, the most influential long-term policy statement is Vision 2020, announced in February 1991 by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Subsequent prime ministers – namely Abdullah Bandawi and Najib Razak – have also followed long-term policy practices, including the National Vision Policy (NVP), National Mission (NM) and New Economic Model (NEM) implemented alongside Vision 2020 and MP.

Related Studies

The author emphasizes that the budget office usually has little understanding of the plan's vision, which makes the plan meaningless to implementing agencies. The effectiveness of the planning agencies was evaluated in terms of their ability to coordinate and direct the development activities of the public and private sectors.

Independent Variables and the Moderator Variable in this Study

Skill Set
Moderator Variable: Political Stability

However, this study was unable to investigate all functions of the organization due to limited resources and data access. Individual capacity in this study refers to the skills and knowledge of planning officials in the national planning organization that fulfill the organization's mission.

Conceptual Framework

Globalization demonstrates the need to shift from economic growth to a development approach where the capacity of the national planning agency must be substantially changed if it is to deliver outcomes for the national plan in an effective and sustainable manner. The conceptual framework—the development plan implementation evaluation model—is proposed to evaluate the capacity of the national planning agency.

Research Design

Travel to Kuala Lumpur to collect data at the EPU and central agencies such as the ICU and MoF, as well as other locations determined by the informants, was undertaken from 2017 to 2019.

Data Collection

In-depth Interview
Focus Group Interviews
Document Analysis
Participant Observation

It was here that the author was enormously appeared in the culture of monitoring and evaluation of NESDB for six months. The trips excluded official missions assigned to the author as a representative of the NESDB to work with the EPU and relevant organizations.

An Analysis of the Data

Time was spent in the libraries and cafeterias of the organizations visited, and the researcher had lunches with her colleagues in the EPU on and off meetings. Content analysis was used to improve understanding of the data and to build a model to describe the phenomenon in a conceptual form (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008).

Research Sites

Data collected in the form of field notes and audio were all recorded and transcribed into written texts. The use of content analysis is also critical for identifying meanings, intentions, consequences, and contexts that ultimately enable the interpretation of meaning from the content of textual data (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005).

Unit of Analysis

Design of the Indicators and Measures

Variables in the Study

Exploration is the scanning and deeper evaluation of the organization's knowledge objects (explicit dimension) and knowledge innovation processes (implicit dimension), such as employee profiles or a concrete product- or process-related document (Minonne, 2007). Members of the organizations associated with the planner have confidence in the planner.

Sampling

Validity of the Research

However, Cho and Trent argue that while these approaches are critical to validity in qualitative research, they should not be used in isolation. Therefore, extensive triangulation methods were used to achieve a coarse description in order to obtain holistically valid results.

Research Steps and Expected Outcomes

Conduct necessary document reviews for each variable followed by interview and observation in the field. Sufficient reliable information for comprehensive analysis and to capture different dimensions of context for each variable studied.

Discussion with Knowledgeable Persons: Thailand and Malaysia

Professor Lee is the author of several articles on the Malaysian planning system, for example Making Sense of Malaysia's Institutional Reforms (Lee, 2018b), The Evolution of Development Planning in Malaysia (Lee & Lee, 2017), and Are Five-Year Development Plans Passé in Malaysia. His advice also reshaped the researcher's thinking about the EPU; that is, some degree of bureaucracy and organizational culture may not be as dynamic as previously thought.

Panel of Experts: Thailand and Malaysia

Individual who has practiced or has knowledge for at least 30 years in fields including economic planning and development planning. The process did not involve a panel of experts from Malaysia as Professor Lee and Chasidporn provided sufficient commentary on the conceptual framework, data collection methodology and interview questions.

Pilot Testing of Data Collection Instrument

Teh Kee Sin, president and founder of the SMI Association of Malaysia, was selected for the Malaysian participants due to his experience working with government officials, the private sector and politicians alike. Sin is also an entrepreneur and served as an advisor to Pasir Kudang Municipality, Johor Bahru, Malaysia from 2007 to 2018. The draft questions for the interview were sent to him via email.

Gatekeepers

Tan Sri Sulaiman connected me with the Director General of the ICU, Tan Sri Ahmad Zaki Ansore Mohd Yusof. After connecting with her, the researcher gained a greater understanding of the country's monitoring system and the ICU relationship with the EPU.

Data Collection Process

Triangulation: Document Review and Observation

Individual capacity: examination of the meeting reports of the Joint Public and Private Sector Consultative Committee (JPSCC) to resolve economic issues was explored as a research strategy in order to gain greater understanding of how the relationship between planning officers and private representatives is maintained.

Research Ethics

Process Analysis

This process enabled the development of relationships between independent variables and development plan implementation model of each country. Third step was based on conformity approach, global development indices were used to examine relationship between the capacity and implementation efficiency.

Results of the EPU Capacity

Writing Skill
Interaction
Research Design

The basis of association with public policy organizations, private sector associations, CSOs, think tanks and stakeholders in formulating the national five-year plan, monitoring implementation and evaluating the development plan was 13. It was the cause of association with organizations public policy bodies, private sector associations, CSOs, think tanks and stakeholders in policy analysis.

Results of the NESDB Capacity

Writing Skill
Interaction
Research Design

The validity of association with public organisations, private sector associations, CSOs, think tanks and stakeholders in policy analysis was 1. The validity of public organisations, private associations, CSOs and think tanks being formally incorporated into the planning mechanism was 0.

Malaysia’s Planning Context

Administrative System and Politics
Economy
Race
Structure and Key Executive Central Agencies
Public Sector Development

The indication of a weakening of power is seen in the 12th general election led by Abdullah, where BN lost several parliamentary seats among urban voters to the then opposition coalition - Pakatan Rakyat (PR) as the party capitalized on public concerns about corruption, judicial independence, media policy and electoral reforms . It is jointly chaired by the President of the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers and Chief Secretary to the Government.

Malaysia’s Planning Horizon

We will be a scientific and advanced society that will contribute to the scientific and technological civilization of the future. The function of the Malaysia Plan is clear and robust (Brown, Govindasamy, Loo, & Taliercio, 2017) as seen in the following statements: “Six 5-year development plans covering the entire period. 6 to 11 of the Malaysia Plan) were intended to break down the long-term vision into feasible, actionable and incremental steps.”.

Discussion of Results

Institutional Arrangements

NBO budget officers join the EPU at an early stage of MP formulation. I think other ministries will have problems accessing data, especially confidential... The main conclusion is that there is a big gap between the government's plans and what we as analysts, researchers, think tanks feel, not only about their implementation , but also in how they were executed, because here there is little contact between government agencies and the so-called intelligence service.

Writing

Interaction

Research Design

Political Stability

Thailand’s Planning Context

Administrative System and Politics

Economy

Structure and Key Executive Central Agencies

Public Sector Development

Strategic Planning

Knowledge Management

Writing

Summary of the Capacity of the EPU and NESDB

Summary of the Capacity of the EPU

Summary of the capacity of the NESDB

Comparative Findings

Development Plan Implementation Effectiveness: The Conformance-Based

Limitations of the Study

Conclusion of this Study

Policy Implications

Policy Implications for the EPU

Policy Implications for the NESDB

General Implications

Adding to the Literature

Suggestions for Future Studies