28 Jun 2015

Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Mr Edwin Batshu, says Botswana has registered significant progress towards gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Speaking at the official opening of the 16th Women Expo 2015 recently, Mr Batshu said government had established a flagship programme; poverty eradication, targeting rural and remote  communities as well as women and people with disabilities.

He said out of the P520 million fund for the poverty eradication, P416 million was geared towards women.

Through such efforts, he said they had impacted on the percentage of people living below poverty datum line, given a declined from an estimated 30 per cent in 2002 and 2003 to 19.6 per cent in 2013.

“We believe that as time goes on, we should register the reverse of unemployment levels from 22.6 per cent amongst women as recorded in the 2011 population and housing census,” he said.

The minister said according to International Centre of Research, women performed 66 per cent of the world’s work, produced 50 per cent of the food but earned only 10 per cent of the income and owned one to two per cent of property.

He noted that government continued to provide financial resources to women’s groups to start income generating activities.

“In the just ended financial year, my ministry was issued with a total of P25.2 million from the alcohol levy for the women’s economic empowerment programme,” he said.

However, the minister said government also recognised persistent challenges of women entrepreneurs in accessing markets hence continued to provide opportunities including the expositions.

He said the exposition had grown from only 70 exhibitors in 1999 to 350 in the past two years with an addition of the northern women’s exposition in Francistown while the third would be held from July 27 to August 2 this year.

Meanwhile, women exhibitors were encouraged to strive hard and become richer as well as utilise government money to improve their lives.

The 16th Women Expo 2015 was held under the theme Beijing+20 Women’s Economic Empowerment, Prosperity and Progress for all.

The best women exhibitors won awards based on the level of their competition. Categories included among others, upholstery, construction, food processing and fine art. Ends