Budget and MEPyD present tool to prioritize public investment projects

The initiative also promotes the use of a common framework for infrastructure planning across territories by state institutions.

The Ministry of Economy, Planning and Development (MEPyD) and the General Directorate of Budget (Digepres) They held a meeting to share a methodology among public entities that establishes criteria for prioritizing public investment projects. The meeting also aimed to provide information that would improve the quality of state investment, ensuring its execution with adequate levels of efficiency and effectiveness, and prioritizing community needs.

The talk was led by Pavel Isa Contreras, Minister of Economy, Planning and Development; Iván Ramírez, Deputy Director of Budget and representatives of other government institutions.

The welcoming remarks were delivered by Luis Madera, Vice Minister of MEPyD, who was in charge of the main presentation with the name “Model for prioritizing public investment projects”.

For his part, Pavel Isa Contreras, minister of MEPyDHe explained that the tool provides technical criteria and options so that institutions can identify the projects to select from the set of infrastructures included in their planning. “We offer a mechanism that indicates priorities and influences decision-making, allowing for a degree of certainty, effectiveness, and a common framework among government institutions,” Contreras explained.

Luis Madera, Deputy Minister of MEPyDIn his speech, he explained that the project aims to direct development to where people live, an express mandate of President Luis Abinader's government vision.

Furthermore, he emphasized that among the project's strengths are its prioritization of the poorest provinces with historically lower investment, territorial demands, and projects rather than institutions. Madera referenced the Public Planning and Investment Law, No. 498-06, as the strategic guide that identifies the complementarity and synergy that should prevail in the portfolio of evaluated and prioritized projects, and the budget.

Prioritization methodology

Luis Madera also explained that the tool is based on hierarchical analytical processes, used in the public and private sectors to address issues with a degree of complexity.

The Budget technical team also included Odilys Hidalgo, from the Budgetary Services Directorate; Griselda Gómez Santana from the Quality and Evaluation of Budgetary Management Directorate; and María Victoria Ortíz, head of the Budget Standards and Methodologies Department, among other representatives from Digepres areas; also present was Martín Francos Rodríguez, Director General of Public Investments of the MEPyD.

The activity was held in the Juan Bosch hall of Digepres.