Integrated Planning System (IPS)

The Department for Development and Good Governance in the Prime Ministry office is in the process of implementing a comprehensive automated system to strengthen the Integrated Planning System (IPS) which links strategic policy planning with the budget planning and public financial management more broadly.

Key MIS components of IPS include the IPS Information System (IPSIS) and the Albanian Financial Management Information System (AFMIS). These platforms will be linked with the External Assistance Management Information System (EAMIS).

The Department for Development and Good Governance through implementation of IPSIS aims to:

Prioritize the policymaking database, implementing a single, fully integrated, homogenous solution to cover the areas of strategic planning and budgeting, all in conjunction with national strategy for development, sector and cross-cutting strategies, government development programs and priority measures.
Enhance the performance orientation and results monitoring of the NSDI, sector and crosscutting strategies so that every line ministry according to impact and outcome indicators produces a Performance Assessment Matrix report for each of its own strategies, every year;
Maximize efficiency and transparency in the strategic planning and monitoring process, analysis and ad-hoc or predefined reporting capabilities, as well as data mining and business intelligence process to ensure decision making based on data analysis (information from EAMIS, Treasury System, Medium Term Budget Planning (MTBP), Socio-economic indicators from INSTAT etc. will be maintained in IPSIS).

The IPSIS system:

Enables convenient and smooth communication and information exchange among the Prime Minister’s Office, Ministry of Finance, Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and other line ministries and agencies involved in the strategic planning process
Is streamline by minimizing the manual work, capturing data at the source, making the data flow seamless from the start of the process till its completion and providing real time tracking capabilities and possibility for sharing of budget and project information among all stakeholders.
Provides a comprehensive and complete overview of government priority measures (national development projects and programs) to all the parties involved both to the government and to external counterparts (donors and beneficiaries).
Enforces new security structures (umbrella type), to cover all applications while the users are now able to use a single sign-on and security profiles to access data in any phase of the process
Captures the data at source – to streamline the process of data entry by providing various user groups with user- friendly data entry forms

IPSIS Stakeholders

Main stakeholders overall are the Department of Development & Good Governance (DDGG) in Prime Ministry, the Ministry of Finance and Economy (MoFE), and the National Agency for Information Society for the technical implementation.

At the functional level stakeholders are each Line Ministry and especially the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, as well as other central independent institutions involved in the preparation of the strategic policy documents.

IPSIS Interfaces:

IPSIS system is created and developed as an integrated structure, which meets the information system purpose, and in which the integrity, interrelationship and compatibility of all its components are ensured. IPSIS system will be integrated with other systems to be able to support required functionalities such as:

Interface with Albanian Financial Management Information System (AFMIS).
- Importing Master data on central Institutions and Agencies, funds source, budget programs, project locations, etc.
- Linking in AFMIS policy goals, specific objectives and indicators with budget programme data, planned and actual budget values.
- Linking in AFMIS and imported in IPSIS the priority measures with investment project implementation data.
- Importing investment projects data and output data into IPSIS
Interface with External Assistance Management Information System (EAMIS).
- Publishing structured reports on the priority measures/national development projects from IPSIS.
- Linking the investment project data of AFMIS with IPSIS NSDI data on pillars, strategic goals and SDGs.
Interface with the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs ICT system

Import of master data on EU chapters, subheadings, areas and responsible institutions,
Import of the list of EU acquis.

Interface with INSTAT ICT system.

Import of the list of high level impact indicators for NSDI.

IPSIS will be linked to existing Albanian Government Gateway (GG) Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) maintained by NAIS (since 2012) to communicate with other government systems. There are 30+ government systems already connected through the Albanian Government Gateway.

The AFMIS as the main system integrated with IPSIS is developed from the Ministry of Finance and Economy and is designed as an expansion of the existing Albanian Government Financial Information System with additional functional modules to support Medium Term Budget Planning, Public Investment Management and integration of the additional components with the existing AGFIS.

Key business priorities and several core processes to be managed by the IPSIS platform are:

Preparation of the National Strategy for Development and Integration, and the list of high level indicators

Preparation of strategic documents and the related indicator’s passport:

Sector and cross-cutting strategies
Development Programs
National Plan for European Integration
Policy Priority Note (annual)
Government Priorities

Inter-institutional consultation for strategic planning

National Priority Measures

National Development Projects
Development Program Identification Form
Megaprojects

Monitoring of the strategic documents and reporting on different levels of data processing regarding progress and achievements.

IPS Calendar

Archive of documents

The new designed policy framework brings into standardisation of the forms and reports for preparation and monitoring of the National Strategy for Development and Integration and all the strategic documents, simplifying them with focus on implementation based on results/outputs and performance indicators (this is realised also because of the integration with AFMIS).

The diagram of the Policy Framework with all links between strategic framework and MTBP is shown here:

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