24 Sep 2014

Nearly over 90 per cent of all registered businesses in Botswana are Small Micro and Medium Enterprises (SMMEs) and employ over 300 000 people both formally informally.

Deputy permanent secretary for Economic Diversification Drive in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Ms Peggy Serame said when officiating at the launch of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Botswana 2012 National Report.

Ms Serame said entrepreneurship was recognised globally as one of the pinnacles of economic development, growth and diversity.

The SMMEs sector, she said had proved to be an important driver of economic growth and employment creation across the world, including in Botswana. 

However, she said SMMEs faced challenges, such as access to finance, poor quality products, access to markets, lack of proper management structures, lack of proper training, technical skills and entrepreneurial development training, lack of proper keeping of financial records and misuse of business designated funds.

Government, Ms Serame said considered SMMEs sector as an engine of economic growth. In this regard, she said government had come up with initiatives that would contribute positively towards SMME growth.

This, she said also involved creating an enabling environment for doing business in Botswana, which among others entailed amending the Trade Act, the Industrial Act and the Companies Act. 

In addition, she said the Ministry of Trade and Industry also had key agencies, such as CEDA, LEA, which “actively play an important role in preparing Batswana to start, run and grow successful companies, the bulk of which are SMMEs.”

She expressed gratitude that the report “is unique because unlike entrepreneurship data sets that measure newer and smaller firms, GEM studies at the grassroots level, the behaviour of individuals with respect to starting and managing a business.”

The deputy permanent secretary noted that the report was an important milestone in the history of Botswana, “specifically an achievement by the Botswana chapter of the GEM under the auspices of UB’s Faculty of Business.” 

In his welcome address, University of Botswana’s acting deputy vice chancellor, Academic Affairs, Prof Yohana Mashalla, said it was the UB’s quest to become a research-intensive university internationally, recognised for the volume, quality and impact of its research.

To make this possible, Prof Mashalla said the university adopted an ambitious research strategy in 2008 that had, among its objectives to increase staff participation in research; improved student research training, increased volume and quality of research outputs, increased national and international collaborative research and increased internal and external funding for research. 

Further, he said the university would see the establishment of Research Centres and Institutes to facilitate this intensity of research, adding that the university would continue to encourage research in all disciples. 

However, Prof Mashalla said that “international experience suggests that selective investment in a relatively small number of strategic research areas is a key driver of research quality.” 

In order to provide the necessary focus for achieving research excellence, he said the university would identify, from time to time, priority research themes based on the following considerations; its existing areas of research strength, national research priorities, international trends in research and emerging societal needs and new research areas. 

These themes, Prof Mashalla said would be inter-disciplinary in nature and investigation involving collaboration across disciplines would be expected. 

“It is intended that the university will build a strong international reputation in these selected areas and hence the themes will provide the basis for targeted excellence and prioritised resource allocations,” he added.

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor is an annual assessment of the entrepreneurial activity, aspirants and attitudes of individuals across a wide range of countries. Initiated in 1999, GEM explores the role of entrepreneurship in national economic growth, unveiling detailed national features and characteristics associated with entrepreneurial activity.

The objectives of GEM are to measure differences in the level of entrepreneurial activity between countries, to uncover factors leading to appropriate levels of entrepreneurship and suggest policies that may enhance the national level of entrepreneurial activity. ENDS