A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ART IN DEVELOPMENT PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT

Abstract

Strategic planning is a method for setting future direction by gathering and utilizing specific information and the processes translate into specific and measurable goals, aims, objectives and action plans. This study is aimed to assess determinants of strategic plan development and implementation success in the case Wolkite town municipality. An institution based study was conducted with stratified random sampling technique. Data were collected from randomly selected officials by using a structured and pretested questionnaire. The collected data was checked, cleared, entered into Epi data 3.1 and exported to SPSS software version 20 for analysis. Both quantitative and qualitative data analyses methods were carried out to identify level of implementation status in Wolkite town municipality. The study indicated that 51.7% of respondent said that the strategic plan meet standard of strategic plan. And 84.8% of participants showed that municipality office didn’t allocate necessary supplies for strategic plan development. And also implementation status was assessed by five pillars of strategic plan implementation; the result of study leadership quality accounted only 55.6%, resource availability 71.5%, effective stakeholder involvement 55.6%, organizational structure 31.8% and organizational culture 60.9% strategic implementation of the main pillars are poor. The overall aggregated average implementation status of Wolkite town municipality was poor. Municipality’s leader should be equipped with both professional and leadership competencies. Effective & timely communication system should be adapted.