How to Prepare a Strategic Plan and a Government Action Plan in Thailand: Steps, Example and KPIs

This guide is for planning divisions and executives of government agencies, public organizations and state enterprises. The 13th National Economic and Social Development Plan runs until 30 September 2027, and many agencies' 5-year action plans for 2023–2027 (B.E. 2566–2570) end with it. The next cycle covers 2028–2032 (B.E. 2571–2575). The facts here were checked against NESDC's latest documents, including the Cabinet resolution of 26 May 2026.

Strategic plan, government action plan and action plan: what is the difference

The three terms are often mixed up. The difference lies in what each plan does, not in the name on the cover.

• —Strategic plan: what results the organization will create, for whom, and what it will and will not do, usually over three to five years.
• —Government action plan (phaen patibat ratchakan): the formal name of the Level 3 plan that agencies at department level and above must prepare under the Royal Decree, as a 5-year plan and an annual plan with goals, results, indicators, projects and budget. In practice the 5-year action plan is also the agency's strategic plan.
• —Action plan: who does what, when and with what budget, in any sector. In Thai government usage, an "action plan on ..." (phaen patibat kan dan ...) is an issue-based plan shared by several department-level agencies, prepared only where necessary.

Names also differ by type of body. NESDC's manual says public organizations and independent bodies use "action plan of (agency name)", state enterprises use "enterprise plan" unless a law sets another name, and "National Strategy" is reserved for Level 1. Calling the document a strategic plan is fine if it contains everything a Level 3 plan requires.

Thailand's three plan levels

On 4 December 2017 the Cabinet resolved to classify the country's plans into three levels. On 26 May 2026 the Cabinet approved consolidating its resolutions on how plans are submitted for Cabinet consideration into a single resolution. It revoked four earlier resolutions, including the one of 4 December 2017, but kept the three-level classification unchanged. Plans for the new cycle should therefore cite the resolution of 26 May 2026.

Area-based Level 3 plans (regional, provincial cluster and provincial plans) fall under the Royal Decree on Integrated Area-Based Administration B.E. 2565 (2022). Local development plans of local administrative organizations follow a separate Ministry of Interior regulation; the principles on goals and indicators here apply, but their format and deadlines follow that regulation.

Level 3 also covers plans prepared under international obligations. Since the National Reform Plan ended, part of Thailand's regulatory reform work has come from the OECD accession process, where Thailand is a candidate in the technical reviews. Agencies whose mandates are under an OECD committee review should carry that work in their action plan as projects with owners and indicators. See NXT's OECD Accession Playbook, independent research by NXT Consulting Group, not affiliated with or endorsed by the OECD or the Royal Thai Government.

How targets cascade: the XYZ principle

NESDC uses a causal-relationship principle it calls XYZ, so that every agency's projects contribute to the same set of national targets.

• —Z: the targets of the National Strategy's six strategies
• —Y2: the 37 issue-level targets of the master plans
• —Y1: the 140 sub-plan targets of the master plans
• —X: the agency's projects and activities

The rule to remember: every project must align with at least one master plan issue and contribute to at least one sub-plan target (Y1). NESDC's manual recommends using Final Value Chain Thailand (FVCT) data to see which factors are missing in the chosen Y1 target's value chain, then designing projects to close that gap. Choose the target first, then design projects, not the other way round.

Where eMENSCR fits

eMENSCR is NESDC's national monitoring and evaluation system for the National Strategy and the Level 2 plans. Agencies at department level and above must:

• —enter the 5-year action plan by 30 October of the plan's first fiscal year, and each annual plan within 30 days of its announcement;
• —enter every project for the fiscal year, funded or not, and report progress within 30 days of each quarter's end;
• —enter an achievement report within the first quarter of the fiscal year after each plan ends.

The 5-year and annual action plans need no Cabinet approval, so NESDC does not screen them; issue-based action plans are screened before they go to the Cabinet. Achievement reports score results on a base of 100 against the targets, so the targets written into the plan decide whether the end-of-plan report can be read at all.

The law behind government action plans

The Royal Decree on Criteria and Procedures for Good Governance B.E. 2546 (2003), amended in 2019, is the legal basis of the government action plan:

• —Section 9: agencies must plan before carrying out a mission, with steps, timing, budget, targets, results and indicators, and must monitor and evaluate against standards set by the Public Sector Development Commission (OPDC).
• —Section 16: the action plan is a five-year plan aligned with the National Strategy, the master plans, the National Reform Plan, the National Economic and Social Development Plan, the Cabinet's policy statement and other relevant plans. The first round covered fiscal years 2020–2022, so the current round is 2023–2027. Each year the minister approves an annual plan, the Bureau of the Budget allocates funds according to it, and a mission left out of the plan receives no allocation.
• —Section 18: moving budget away from a mission in the plan so that it misses its target requires Cabinet approval to amend the plan first.

Corporate strategic plans and government action plans: similarities and differences

The thinking tools are almost the same: situation analysis, indicators and regular review. The decision context is very different.

Government can learn the discipline of choice from business: a good plan says what the organization will not do, and is reviewed often enough to correct course. Business can learn from government to write the logic from project to outcome so others can check it. For the corporate side, read our guide to strategic management, the strategy execution guide, from priorities to the monthly business review, and what JUMP+ is and how to build a plan investors believe. Companies looking for a team to help with corporate planning can see our strategy consulting and strategic planning page.

Seven steps to prepare a strategic plan and government action plan

NESDC's manual uses a five-stage policy cycle: agenda setting, policy formulation, policy decision, implementation, and review and evaluation. The steps below sit within the same cycle, split into seven so that a team can divide the work.

Step 1: Analyse the situation

Always start by reviewing the previous plan. Which indicators were met, which were missed, and why? Achievement reports in eMENSCR and any existing evaluations are the first data set. Then analyse three layers:

• —External (PESTEL): political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal factors that will affect the mandate over the next five years, including the direction of the draft 14th National Economic and Social Development Plan.
• —Internal: resources, people, data systems, legal powers and budget constraints.
• —Stakeholders: interview executives, run workshops with divisions, and listen to service users, partner agencies and the private sector concerned.

Summarise the findings in a SWOT, then a TOWS matrix that pairs the factors into four types of option: strengths to seize opportunities (SO), fixing weaknesses to use opportunities (WO), strengths against threats (ST), and reducing weaknesses while avoiding threats (WT). A SWOT without the TOWS step usually stays a list of observations. NESDC's manual asks for empirical evidence, not assertion.

Step 2: Vision, mission and strategic issues

The vision should describe what service users will experience when the plan ends, not a slogan. The mission is the legal mandate the agency must fulfil. Strategic issues are the areas where the agency chooses to concentrate resources this cycle. Keep them to three to five. If every division needs its own issue, the plan becomes a table of contents of the organization instead of a set of choices.

Map each issue to the Y1 targets and National Economic and Social Development Plan milestones it supports. Build this alignment table now, not just before submission.

Step 3: Goals and KPIs

Each goal should have one or two outcome indicators and a leading indicator that shows early whether the agency is on track. Good indicators are SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.

• —Lagging indicators: results that have already happened, such as target-group income or service times. Slow, but they show whether the plan succeeded.
• —Leading indicators: what happens before the result, such as the share of participants applying what they learned within 90 days. Fast, and they leave time to correct course.

Every indicator needs a baseline, a data source, a frequency and an owner. If there is no baseline yet, collecting it is a first-year task.

Step 4: Strategies, programmes and projects

A strategy is the chosen way to reach a goal; projects make it happen. Every project needs objectives, outputs, outcomes, a target group, activities, indicators, an owner and a timeframe. NESDC's basic quality check asks that a project fit the chosen Y1 target's value chain, rest on evidence, have feasible activities and measurable indicators. Projects that set up funds or committees, renovate buildings or buy equipment must show a clear contribution to Y1.

To show the plan on one page, use a strategy map from Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard: how investment in people and systems drives processes, results for service users and mission results. Public bodies usually put mission results at the top instead of the financial perspective.

Step 5: Link the plan to the budget

A plan not tied to the budget becomes a document separate from the real work. Section 16 ties budget allocation to the annual plan, and the revised master plan document states that annual budgets must be consistent with the master plans. In practice:

• —estimate each strategy's annual budget in the 5-year draft, without line-item detail but with clear priorities;
• —use the same project names and codes in the annual plan, the budget request and eMENSCR;
• —rank projects in advance, so the team knows what to cut if the allocation is smaller than requested;
• —settle the plan's direction before the budget request for its first year is prepared.

Step 6: Plan monitoring and evaluation

Write the monitoring and evaluation plan together with the plan, not near its end. At minimum, specify:

• —how each indicator is measured, who collects the data and how often it is reported;
• —the internal review rhythm, for example quarterly executive reviews aligned with eMENSCR reporting;
• —mid-term and end-of-plan evaluation points, the questions each evaluation must answer, and the budget for them;
• —the criteria for adjusting or stopping a project, and who approves the change.

Step 7: Communicate and cascade the plan

The 5-year plan has to be cascaded into annual plans and down to division and individual indicators, or staff will know the plan only by its cover. Communicate it as a short story: three to five things the agency will change for citizens, and which division contributes to each. How to cascade indicators without goals reaching teams weeks late is covered in our article on KPI cascading and OKRs.

Example: an action plan for a fictional agency

This table shows how the parts of a plan connect, using a fictional department-level agency whose mandate is helping community entrepreneurs sell online.

The goal-level indicator measures entrepreneurs' income, not the number of trainees; trainee numbers remain a project output.

Writing good indicators: from measuring work to measuring results

A common problem in public-sector plans is indicators that measure whether work was done, not what changed as a result. The table compares common indicators with better ones.

Milestone indicators suit the first year of a project that builds a system, not a goal's main indicator for five years. If you measure satisfaction, size the sample so year-on-year comparisons hold; see how many survey responses are enough.

Before finalising, write a KPI dictionary entry for each indicator: definition, formula, baseline, data source, frequency, owner and the reasoning behind the target. It keeps quarterly reports and the final achievement report on the same numbers. For cascading indicators to units and separating KPIs from OKRs, see our article on KPI cascading and OKRs.

Common mistakes

• —Copying national plan text as the agency's strategy: alignment is claimed but no logic shows how projects move a Y1 target. NESDC's revised manual itself notes that Level 3 plans have not always been cascaded from the National Strategy and Level 2 plans.
• —Too many strategic issues and indicators: when everything matters equally, nothing gets enough resources.
• —No review of the previous plan: new targets are set without knowing why the old ones were missed.
• —Indicators without a baseline or data source: the end-of-plan report cannot prove anything.
• —Finishing the plan after the budget request: the first year's budget does not reflect the plan.
• —Plan periods out of step with the master plans: NESDC's manual requires 5-year plans to end in line with the master plan periods, such as 2027, 2032 and 2037.
• —Writing to submit rather than to use: no quarterly reviews, and staff cannot see where their work sits in the plan.

Timeline for preparing the 2028–2032 action plan

Fiscal year 2028 (B.E. 2571) starts on 1 October 2027. The new 5-year plan should be approved before then and must be entered in eMENSCR by 30 October 2027 under NESDC's manual. For a department-level agency, a workable timeline looks like this:

One caution: the FY2028 budget request is prepared months before the fiscal year starts, on the budget calendar the Cabinet approves each year, so the plan's direction and key projects should be clear before it begins, even if the full document comes later. If the 14th Plan is published after your draft is done, review the alignment table again. Agencies with many sub-units or consultation rounds should start earlier.

Who should be involved

• —Head of agency and senior executives: choose the strategic issues and approve the plan.
• —Strategy and planning division: owns the process, writes the plan and manages eMENSCR entry.
• —Division directors: own strategies and projects and set reachable targets.
• —Finance and budget: estimate costs and link the plan to the budget request.
• —HR and IT: assess workforce, competencies and the data systems indicators need.
• —Service users and partner agencies: show where the real problems are and share cross-agency targets.
• —External advisers, if any: design the process, analyse data and facilitate neutrally; the planning division keeps ownership.

How monitoring and evaluation connect to the plan

Monitoring asks whether the plan is being carried out and on time. Evaluation asks whether the plan and its projects produced the intended results, whether they were worth the money, and whether to continue, adjust or stop them. The Thai system has both.

• —Monitoring: quarterly reporting in eMENSCR and achievement reports for annual and 5-year plans, which NESDC compiles for the Cabinet.
• —Evaluation: Section 9 of the Royal Decree requires agencies to monitor and evaluate performance against OPDC standards, and Section 45 provides for independent evaluators to assess results, service quality, citizen satisfaction and value for money.

A well-designed plan makes evaluation much easier, because the logic from activities to outputs, outcomes and impact is already written in steps 3 and 4. Evaluators can build a logic model from it, or use the CIPP framework (context, input, process, product); see our article on project evaluation with the CIPP model and logic models. To value social outcomes against the budget spent, see social return on investment (SROI). Agencies looking for an external evaluation team can see our project, plan and performance evaluation work.

In practice: budget for evaluation from the start, collect baselines in year one, and schedule a mid-term evaluation around year three, while there is still time to adjust.

How NXT can help

NXT Consulting Group works with government planning divisions through the whole process: reviewing the previous plan, situation analysis, executive workshops, indicator design, and cascading into annual plans and monitoring tools. Engagements under the NXT name include a 5-year strategic plan with performance and economic impact evaluation for the Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA), and a 5-year strategic plan with a ministry-level action plan setting out projects, owners and timelines for a government ministry. NXT is registered as a juristic-person consultant with the Ministry of Finance Consultant Database Center in the Research and Evaluation (RE) field.

The scope of our work with government agencies and how we run it is on our strategic planning consulting for Thai government agencies page, and each engagement is described on our work page.

Talk to us about your 2028–2032 plan

Official sources

• —National Strategy and Level 2 plans (NESDC portal, Thai)
• —Preparing Level 3 plans: manual, templates and related Cabinet resolutions (NESDC, Thai)
• —Level 3 planning manual, revised August 2026 (PDF, Thai)
• —Cabinet resolution of 26 May 2026 on submitting plans to the Cabinet (PDF, Thai)
• —Cabinet resolution of 4 December 2017 on the same subject (PDF, Thai)
• —eMENSCR FAQ (PDF, Thai)
• —National Strategy 2018–2037, Thai and English editions
• —Master Plans under the National Strategy (2023–2037), revised edition
• —13th National Economic and Social Development Plan (2023–2027)