Top members of the National Development Plan (NDP) Steering Committee yesterday commended "tremendous progress" made during the initial diagnostic phase of the much-touted NDP ahead of a skills mission focusing on improving labor and skills at the end of July.
Dr. Nicola Virgill-Rolle, director of economic development and planning, told Guardian Business that the committee had begun the process of disseminating sector-specific reports for review and would soon ramp up industry consultations and partner with local training institutions ahead of a state of the nation report slated for release in late summer.
"We are targeting the end of July. We want to make sure that the date is validated and the report is validated. We have set up 10 industry consultation groups that need time to digest these reports and provide comments. We'll do further research to make sure that the reports are tight and though there will always be debate about them, there won't be major errors or gaps," she said.
Stubbs and Virgill-Rolle spoke during an NDP workshop entitled "Transforming Government: United in Service", framed around boosting productivity and strengthening linkages between the government and public service. The plan is currently being funded by a $450,000 grant from the Inter-American Development (IDB). Launched in November 2014, Prime Minister Perry Christie originally hoped to complete the plan by this month. However, committee members and government officials have since stressed the need for proper deliberation with no firm completion date for the later phases of the NDP.
Virgill-Rolle stated that the IDB-funded skills mission would draw on a variety of institutions and Bahamian demographics, including the diaspora.
"As we go forward with the work and begin the consultation phase we're going to have to pull in from all of The Bahamas, including institutions. We have a number of committees that are being set up now that will draw on the expertise of everyone from the [Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute] to the National Training Institute, and certainly looking at labor and skills as a particular issue," she said.
NDP Steering Committee Chairman Felix Stubbs said that while he was very much pleased with the progress made during the diagnostic phase, the committee could not rush work to meet deadlines at the risk of compromising the NDP.
"We need to create that baseline that will tell us where the gaps are and then we'll know where we need to go to begin to start filling in those gaps and who we need to collaborate with to get the results we want. I'm not going to be hung up on deadlines because what we're doing here is a living document. It's going to continually change as the situation changes," he said.
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