Scenario-based National Planning Workshop Held in Mauritius

The objective of the course was to impart the knowledge and skills required to undertake comprehensive and systemic analysis of development challenges using MI’s Threshold 21 (T21) framework customized to Mauritius.

During the first week of course, participants were introduced to System Dynamics and its utility for comprehensive national planning.  The second week focused on understanding the Minimum Country Model (MCM) that had been developed prior to the course. The MCM had a focus on the agriculture, energy, and tourism sectors, which the participants had indicated are priority national development issues.

In the final week of the course, participants conducted group modeling exercises that included customizing existing models, creating new sectors to better represent national issues, running different policy scenarios, and analyzing their results to determine policies that addressed the national challenges most effectively.

MI supported the group modeling exercise by providing guidance on identifying issues, developing dynamic hypotheses, creating causal loop diagrams (CLD), stock and flow models, running simulations and analyzing their results. The actual modeling work was carried out by the participants themselves, which allowed them to get a hands-on experience on the modeling process.

Participants at the course included researchers and development practitioners from the government, civil society and educational institutions.

Funding was provided by MRC, UNDP (Mauritius and Seychelles), United Nations University, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (South Africa), and United and University of Technology, Mauritius.