The Public Policy Secretariat started with preparation of the Draft Decree on the Procedure for the Preparation of the Draft Development Plan of the Republic of Serbia, in accordance with the Law on the Planning System.
To this end, a Working Group consisting of the representatives of the Ministry, special organizations and civil society organizations was established. The first Working Group meeting was held on 15 March 2023.
Bojana Tošić, the Working Group Chairwoman and the PPS Director, emphasized that regulating this procedure is a prerequisite for commencing the preparation of the Development Plan of the Republic of Serbia, which is the hierarchically most important, long-term development planning document adopted by the National Assembly for a period of minimum 10 years. “As the first step in drafting the working text of the decree, we prepared a comparative analysis of practices that shows how other countries organized the process of drafting their most important development documents, and we posted the analysis on the e-Consultation Portal. Since we are aware of the importance of the Development Plan for each citizen in our country, the decree will provide for the implementation of a broad consultative process in which no one must be left out,” said Bojana Tošić.
Sanja Mešanović, Deputy Director of the Public Policy Secretariat, presented the envisaged time schedule for drafting and pointed out that this decree should enable the creation of a development document that will provide the answer to where we want to see the Republic of Serbia in the next 10 years. “The first step proposed in the preparation of the Development Plan is to look at international trends and determine the current status as a prerequisite for establishing the priority objectives of the country’s development,” said Sanja Mešanović.
During the discussion, the Working Group members emphasized their commitment to this process and emphasized the importance of preparing the Development Plan as a basis for the development of the Investment Plan and the selection of priority projects, as well as for spatial development planning. Also, it was pointed out that in the process of the Development Plan drafting, it is of great importance to take into consideration a balanced regional development and development planning in the context of 2030 Agenda and sustainable development goals.