06 Jul 2015

The financial services sector across the globe is undergoing drastic transformation, hence the need for Botswana to do same, says Barclays Bank of Botswana head of communication and public relations.

Ms Racheal Mushaike said at a meeting on feedback on Global Sustainable Finance conference, which was held in Germany recently, that the vast transformation of the financial services industry was due to the changing technology in recent times.

The overall objective of the Global Sustainable Finance Conference was to contribute in the sustainability transformation of the financial services industry and capital markets by providing an international forum to key stakeholders from across the world for sharing knowledge and experiences.

The conference was meant for countries to work together for a strong, fair, safe and resilient financial services sector that works in harmony with the natural resources as well as examine effective strategies and practices to mainstream sustainability in the financial institutions.

Ms Mushaike said practical aspects of sustainable development finance would include among others moving from Corporate Social Responsibility to Corporate Accountability, citing an example of raising loan facility to finance Small and Medium Micro Enterprises SMME) and rural women in business.

Another aspect, she said would be reporting on sustainable development while the benefits of sustainable finance would be a long term success, which could only be attained when the focus was on shared gross.

On the other hand, director in the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, Dr Earnest Makhwaje said government played a crucial role in sustainable development to provide policy direction and coordination.

He said in other countries the private sector was the one in the forefront of sustainable development, hence sustainable development was not expensive.

Meanwhile, the Global Sustainable Finance Conference’s relevance for Botswana was informing ongoing strategic planning processes such as vision beyond 2016, National Development Plan 11 (NDP 11) and formulation of National Strategy for Sustainable Development. ENDS