By: Abdulrazak Abduljalil Haji
Somalia’s National Transformation Plan (NTP), as claimed by Prime Minister Hamza, aspires to lay out a bold future for the country. But its 500 pages reveal more ambition than strategy for change. The lack of SMART goals, clear indicators, baselines, targets, and a transparent budget turns the NTP into an oversized wish list that will likely gather dust in government offices rather than transform the country.
Resolutions Are Not Plans
Millions of people write down their resolutions, promising to change their current situation on the eve of the new year, but most of these promises collapse because resolutions are not the same as plans. Similarly, governments everywhere produce their national development plans to address developmental challenges of their countries. Somalia, no exception to this global ritual, has produced its own 500-page blueprint called the National Transformation Plan (NTP).
But here lies the question: Is the NTP a plan? structured, actionable, and achievable with a clear timeline, targets, and budget, or is it simply an oversized collection of New Year’s resolutions dressed up in official language with government logos?
First, let’s explore the difference between a resolution and a plan. A resolution is basically a statement of intention that is about what you wish to change or accomplish. A plan, however, goes beyond good intentions on paper; it is a practical structured roadmap that clearly spells out not only what you want to achieve but also how you will get there, when it will happen, which resources will be used, and who will be accountable at each stage.
Ambition Without a Roadmap
One of the shortcomings of the NTP is that its bold aspirations are not clearly defined. Ambitions such as establishing an inclusive and resilient federal system, enhancing access to justice, strengthening institutions and governance, finalizing the constitutional review process, or managing sand dunes to fight environmental degradation are worthy goals, but they read more like resolutions. What’s missing is the plan: the clearly defined steps of activities, outputs, outcomes, timelines, budgets, responsible actors, and indicators to track and measure progress. Without these, the NTP remains a wish rather than a pathway to results.
Misapplication of Planning Tools: Theory of Change vs. Case for Change
Another striking weakness of the NTP is its inconsistent use of planning tools. The NTP treats the Case for Change and the Theory of Change as if they are the same, when in reality they serve very different purposes. The Case for Change is the rationale that explains why the current situation must be transformed and justifies why a specific reform is necessary.
The NTP, however, presents in some chapters a narrative Theory of Change, but upon closer inspection, it reads more like a background or situational analysis rather than a Theory of Change. It misses the essential elements that make a true Theory of Change meaningful.
A Theory of Change is not just an explanation of a condition or a situational analysis. It’s an explicit explanation of how and why change is expected to occur in a given context. It connects activities to outcomes, outlining the pathways, assumptions, and conditions that explain how what you do leads to the impact you seek. In short, a Theory of Change is what drives ambition into a coherent strategy for real change.
Conflicting Goals, Outcomes, Outputs, and Activities
SMART goals – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound – are the heart of any credible development plan. The NTP not only presents its goals, objectives, strategic objectives, initiatives, and interventions in almost identical language but also uses several different terms interchangeably, making the distinctions unclear. The wording of an outcome statement is different from that of an activity, but in the NTP, they are treated the same. Without clear SMART objectives, success is not achievable.
Lack of Indicators, Baselines, and Targets
Contrary to what Prime Minister Hamza states in his NTP foreword message, the NTP document lacks clear targets and accountability measures. One reason we measure our actions is to identify success from failure; therefore, having accountability and performance tracking systems is a must for every plan. A development plan must not only state what will be done but also define how success will be tracked.
This requires indicators that tie directly to outputs and outcomes, baselines that anchor progress against a starting point, and targets that quantify the level of achievement expected within a set timeframe.
The NTP scatters a few standalone indicators across tables at the back of the document, but they are unlinked to goals, outcomes, or outputs. In reality, they create more confusion than clarity and do nothing to measure success or improve accountability.
One-Size-Fits-All Approach Across States
Somalia is not facing a single unified challenge; each Federal Member State has its own resources, vulnerabilities, and priorities. Still, the NTP assumes uniformity by not linking initiatives to specific federal states, presenting interventions as if all states share the same needs and challenges.
By doing so, it misses the quality that makes development planning effective. What works in Puntland may not address the realities of Jubbaland; what is urgent in Galmudug may not be a priority in South West. A plan should address diverse challenges, ensuring that tailored solutions are delivered to the doorsteps of different states, regions, and communities.
The Ghost Budget
The NTP boldly proclaims a total investment estimate of USD 26.2 billion over five years. But this figure comes out of nowhere – there is no breakdown, no costing of interventions across the four pillars, and no roadmap showing how this staggering sum was calculated or where it will come from.
A plan should have a clear and transparent budget linked to what it aims to accomplish. A plan without a budget linked to activities and outputs is like a house without a foundation – merely a resolution destined to collapse.
Role Conflicts and Overlapping Authority
For effective governance and delivery of development agendas, there is a need for clarity of roles and responsibilities, but in the NTP, it is noticeably absent. While the Ministry of Planning is formally responsible for designing national development plans, the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) dominated the NTP’s preparation.
To add to the confusion, the Central Delivery Unit (CDU), operating under the OPM, claims the mandate of overseeing and coordinating the implementation of the NTP across all ministries. The result is an institutional tug-of-war with unclear roles and weak accountability that reduces effectiveness.
Chaotic Structure and Presentation
The NTP’s 500 pages are not only lengthy but also a disorganized document. The first three chapters offer some consistency in formatting, but from Chapter Four onward, everything changes – the coherence breaks, font size and type shift unpredictably, inserted screenshotted tables distort the layout, and parts of sentences disappear, and numbering of headings ceases, making everything hard to read.
The NTP’s structure and presentation reveal inconsistency, a fragmented system, and unfinished work. A national development plan should inspire confidence and be easy to read.
Conclusion
The intention and ambition of the Somali National Transformation Plan to embark on a transformative journey for the Somali people are commendable, but not enough. Similar to New Year’s resolutions written in a notebook on the eve of the new year – filled with motivation and eagerness to change – the NTP will remain a wish list.
A real plan demands more: it requires a clear Theory of Change that explains how activities lead to impact; SMART goals that translate ambition into measurable progress; indicators, baselines, and targets that hold leaders accountable; budgets that are transparent and realistic; roles that are defined, not contested; and a document that inspires trust through clarity and order.
Without these, the NTP is just another New Year’s resolution, not a roadmap for national transformation. The difference between a resolution and a plan is not complicated. It is the difference between aspiration and achievement, between hope on paper and real change on the ground.
Abdulrazak Abduljalil Haji is a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist with over 10 years of experience in designing and managing results-based M&E systems for local and international NGOs.