13 May 2014

The village of Qabo in the Ghanzi District will host the eighth and last workshop for beneficiaries of the poverty eradication programme.

In a media briefing on May 12, the acting Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Shaw Kgathi, said government had now completed the initial stages of the poverty eradication programme and must now extend its reach to the private sector and community based organisations.

“While the Qabo workshop will be the last in the series of regional training workshops undertaken, it will not necessarily mark the end of training and mentoring workshops. There will be other workshops but their content and scope shall be different,” he said.

Mr Kgathi said government had reached the end of the start-up stage in its efforts to eradicate poverty and must now reach out to the private sector and community based organisations to exploit potential partnerships that will sustain the many small and micro businesses, which were being incubated.

In collaboration with Anglo American, government had already developed an enterprise development framework and implementation plan to increase productivity and overall performance of small and medium enterprises.

“We also intend to work with local authorities to ensure sufficient monitoring and evaluation capacity on the ground,” he said.

Mr Kgathi reiterated government’s commitment to creating markets for the produce from beneficiaries, noting that there were 53 designated market places across the country that had been ear marked to host regular market days.

Minister Kgathi further said when they decided to eradicate abject poverty, government recognised that it was neither socially fair nor economically sustainable for the fruits of prosperity to leave out some.

He said commitment to achieving high income status was predicated on the ability to address poverty in all its manifestations. He added that the poverty eradication program aims to ensure that all able bodied Batswana step out of poverty, actively participate in the growth process and embark on the road to wealth creation.

“So far, about 8721 beneficiaries have been assisted, which translates to over 34 884 family members who benefitted from the poverty eradication program. A further 15 494 beneficiaries have been mobilized and they are on the verge of running their projects,” said Mr Kgathi.

As with the previous seven workshops, 1000 participants will be hosted during the three days and imparted with skills in effective processes, effective marketing strategies, basic financial literacy, effective networking and clustering.

For his part, Assistant Minister Gaotlhaetse Matlhabaphiri, said they intended to scale down poverty eradication workshops and continue with quality assurance, standardization and financial management training.

He added that their collaboration with Anglo American will focus on training and quality assurance so that beneficiaries could graduate to become real business personnel. ENDS