GEOG 452: INTROUCTION TO

REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT II

ELEMENTS OF PLANNING PROCESS

 Elements of Planning Process
• The planning process refers to the course of action, the operational
procedure or the logical step by step approach required to be
followed in planning for development.

• There are four basic elements of the planning process, namely:

diagnosis, standardization, design and implementation and
monitoring.
 Elements of the Planning Process

• The Diagnostic element involves a survey of

phenomena under consideration (eg. Region, district
etc) its characteristics and trends.

• This approach is useful in removing guesses and

prejudices, and, hence, increasing the probability of
the success of a plan.
Elements of the Planning Process
• The Standardization element translates the processed
(or scientific) information into terms upon which
detailed operative plan is formulated.

• The standards comprise a list of development indicators

including health, nutrition,housing, education,
employment etc.

• These indicators should be quantifiable, and must be

continuously revised and updated to reflect changing
societal norms, attributes and behaviour
Elements of the Planning Process
• The Design element involves preparing the plan into
logical,synchronized scheme of the research standards.

• The resulting plan normally comes in three sizes, namely; perspective

(or long term), medium, and short term (or annual) plans.
Elements of the Planning Process
• Finally, implementation and monitoring element
involves translating the contents of the plan into action
and undertaking studies to find out about the effects of
the action taken.
• These would serve as lessons for the purpose of making
modifications in the diagnostic, design and
standardization processes.

• This makes the planning processes a continuous, cyclical

phenomenom
Characteristics of Planning Process
• 1. It is a problem solving, dealing with Identification
and solution to societal problems.

• 2. It is multi-objective, seeking to address itself to

many objectives at the same time when a problem is
being solved.

• 3. It is cyclical, implying a continuous process as it

attempts to adjust itself to the changing norms,
behaviour and attributes of society.
Characteristics of Planning Process
• 4. It is evolutionary, developing by natural processes from
rudimentary to more highly organized state in terms of methods and
tools of analysis.

• In another perspective, it evolves from the aspirations of society;

hence, society based.
Characteristics of Planning Process
• 5. It is interdisciplinary, involving integration of
professionals like planners, sectorial specialists (eg.
Economists, geographers, sociologist etc.),
institutionalized societies (eg. Pressure groups such as
TUC, Chamber of Commerce etc), and those concerned
with decision-making (eg. the government,
administrators etc).