Socioeconomic Development Chapter 6 one’s own economic and social development policies and programmes in order to ensure the sustainable welfare of the people. This level of autonomy requires human and institutional capacities capable of conceiving, implementing, monitoring and evaluating development strategies and policies in all sectors and at national, regional and local levels. 835. In order to achieve the required level of autonomy, a country also needs to look at its capacity to take responsibility for funding its development policies, programmes and actions without using external aid excessively or putting itself into debt. 836. At a more structural and fundamental level, a country must look to its capacity to diversify its economic facilities and extend its sources of growth and exports to reduce the risks associated with exogenous shocks and generate jobs in order to achieve self-reliance in the economic and social sector. What measures did the government then take to promote its integration with other countries in the region and to diversify its agricultural production? 837. The CSAR does not cover all of these issues under this objective. It does deal with them partially or fully in other chapters, but this report presents them here. Capacity to develop and implement development strategies and policies 838. 839. 294 Mauritius developed a five-year economic and social development plan between the time of its independence and 1993. It developed a reference document, Vision 2020, in 1996 after an extensive process of consultation. More recently, it designed a 2007 to 2025 Energy Strategy. However, Mauritius abandoned its practice of developing national development plans when it became clear that it did not have a strong mechanism to link the policies, plans and budgets to a medium-term framework. The government started to implement a Medium-Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) in 2003 with the support of the World Bank. The MTEF is a rationalisation technique for preparing, executing and monitoring budgets. It has two objectives: (i) to improve overall budget control; and (ii) to use budget resources more efficiently in order to implement the government’s priority programmes. The main instrument for the first of these two objectives is the mediumterm budget framework. This projects budget aggregates (income, Chapter 6 Socioeconomic Development expenditure and deficit) based on macroeconomic estimates and the general budget objectives of the government. It achieves the second objective, to ensure that it uses its resources more efficiently, through results-based budgeting (RBB). 840. Until recently, ministries negotiated for their annual funds by submitting annual budgets to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Empowerment (MOFEE). They detailed the costs of the inputs of all their agencies, but did not refer to their corresponding returns. In the framework of RBB, the basis for allocating funds extends from inputs to published returns and acknowledged production. Each ministry must prepare a triennial RBB that prioritises its expenditure and the services it offers. 841. RBB embodies the three budget rules that the present government applied to its two previous budgets. These are the Golden Rule, which limits government borrowings to funding investments, the Sustainable Rule, which ensures that the gross public credit to gross domestic product (GDP) ratio declines, and the Constant Expenditure Rule, which requires that total expenditure should remain constant after adjusting for inflation. 842. At the same time that the government emphasised budget planning, some sectors introduced the measures that follow. Diversifying economic facilities 843. Mauritius depends largely on imported petroleum products to meet its energy needs. However, it is possible to develop local and renewable sources of energy, such as biomass, hydroelectric, wave, solar and wind energy. With the rising cost of energy and volatile oil prices, the government has developed a 2007 to 2025 policy for the energy sector. The objective is to extend the country’s energy base by reducing its dependence on imported energy and limiting its greenhouse emissions. International cooperation and support partners 844. While it follows a self-development strategy, Mauritius nevertheless maintains strong ties with its support partners. These include the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which is particularly involved in building capacity to promote gender equality, the European Union (EU), the French Development Agency, the African Development Bank (ADB) and the European Investment Bank 295