09 Oct 2014

Botswana Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (BOCONGO) in partnership with Southern African NGO Network (SANGONeT) have introduced the SANGOTeCH programme.

The programme is designed to create interest in Botswana’s NGOs acquiring technologies that would help NGOs become more efficient in conducting their business. The programme assists non-profit organisations and libraries with formal non-profit status by providing software at very low or discounted fees in conjunction with information and ICT donor partners, as well as by supporting organisations to maximise their ICT purchases and infrastructure.

Speaking at the ICT NGOs’ day on October 8, BOCONGO’s executive secretary, Ms Bagaisi Mabilo said the success of the programme was through knowing the available products being introduced to these products, attending information sessions and talk about the programme so that they all know that whenever people need software, BOCONGO is the network for discounted software. 

She said the prize that one pay for software through the programme is low and will create great savings, adding that their partner; SANGONeT is in Botswana to support them in getting as many NGOs as possible to register on the programme.

“This will be a slow start to get NGOs informed of these products, however we would like to cover more than 90 per cent of active organisations using the products by 2015,” she said.

She further stated that as NGOs, some of the challenges they face is that many grant makers do not provide funding for ICT core costs.

She however said where they are able to show great savings that the programme has, they can turn around the tide of being overlooked in favour of government, private sector initiatives and have their NGO funded for ICT as they can demonstrate cost saving for the sponsor.

The SANGOTeCH Botswana online technology donation and support portal is a partnership between SANGONeT and TechSoup Global, a San Francisco based non-profit organisation that assists non-profits globally to access technology to deepen the impact of their work. ENDS