The National Development Planning Commission has organised the maiden Coordination Meeting of Policy Planning, Budgets, Monitoring, and Evaluation Directorates (PPBMEDs) of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) on Tuesday, January 31, 2023 in Accra.
This is the first of the series of PPMEDs meetings to be organised by the end of 2023 with support from the GIZ.
The meeting was in lieu of the National Development Planning (System) Act 1994, Act 480, which mandates the commission to ensure a well-coordinated, operational, and effective decentralized planning system.
The purpose of the meeting was to strengthen the development arrangements among all MDAs. 
Speaking at the meeting, the Chairman of the National Development Commission, Prof George Gyan-Baffour stated that, Development coordination must be central to the implementation of Ghana’s development agenda to minimize wastage of time and in resource allocation and usage.
“Ensuring whole-of-government coordination requires the identification and mitigation of divergences between sectoral priorities and policies and promote mutually supporting actions across sectors and departments,” he added.
He echoed that, Ghana’s current fiscal challenges should serve as a wake-up call for everyone to step up efforts to improve and sustain our economy.
“The current economic and fiscal challenges we face including exchange rate depreciation, inflationary pressures, fiscal and monetary constraints require that we intensify our efforts in coordinating the activities of Government to minimize overlaps, reduce redundancy, improve efficiency in resource allocation and usage across all sectors of our society to build back our economy better and sustainably,” he highlighted. 
Prof  Gyan Baffuor further added that decentralized planning system with MDAs at the Sectoral, Regional the District levels, are therefore expected to work in synergy to establish vertical and horizontal linkages, to realise the long-term development aspirations of the country.
“This process should guide the implementation of our national strategy: The Agenda for Jobs: Creating Prosperity and Equal Opportunity for All (2022-2025),” he noted. 
He was optimistic that the PPBMEDs engagement would help identify bottlenecks to effective development coordination, define the principles and techniques for effective coordination process and also explore innovative coordination approaches that will enhance our development effort.
The objectives of the meeting were to improve planning, implementation and reporting of programmes, projects, and activities at the sector level as well as develop reliable coordination mechanisms for development planning and management 
“It is also aimed at encouraging the pooling of resources and joint implementation of development programmes to achieve common goals,” he added.
Public Relations Unit, NDPC.