Think 12-year plan Monday, 27 December 2010 01:50

Several organisations have recently announced their five-year strategy plans to showcase new projects. But I wonder why a 5-year strategy plan? Why not a 12-year plan. With the World Cup bid win, isn’t 2022 our time frame? This will both cut costs and avoid unnecessary delay in re-strategising again when the 5 year term ends.

Maybe, people now understand one of our main arguments why, from the very beginning, we supported Qatar’s World Cup bid: Qatar will save eight years on the original National Vision 2030. The World Cup, one is sure, will speed up our target and show serious commitment on the part of the government to build and develop the entire system in the country and allocate maximum spending locally.

Since Qatar is considered as one of the fastest growing economies, we should have a proper plan and start formulating and implementing the procedures and standards before we start spending money and announcing various projects.

Our previous experience -- not only in Qatar but in neighbouring countries – is that all projects end in budget overruns or an extension in the time of completion owing to frequent changes in specifications.

In general, over 50 percent of the strategy plans in the area do not achieve targets on time.

In Qatar today, we cannot, however, afford to continue with the old practice resulting in delays because we are committed to the timeframe of 2022. The strategy plan should take all aspects into consideration before undertaking any project – from a thorough study of the projects, social impact to how it affects other infrastructure projects. For any change in a particular project affects others.

For drawing a proper strategy plan, the following questions should be considered: What is our projected total population in 2022? What percentage of this would be nationals? What is our projected GDP? What’s the real risk that can affect our national strategy plan? Where will we be with regards to the original National Vision 2030? How can education, healthcare and social aspects be properly developed?

For achieving all the planned goals in the 12-year span, we should have a mechanism, a system to evaluate the progress and performance of each project. Here we will need a National Performance Indicator which can be implemented by an independent or non-profit organisation.

We hope that by 2022, we will have a football team that wins the World Cup and we achieve our vision while keeping our identity and values.