12 Oct 2015

The chairperson of the Botswana Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (BOCONGO) Ms Bookie Kethusegile has announced that they will host their inaugural annual stakeholder forum from 18^th -19^th  November 2015.

Ms Kethusegile said during a media briefing held recently at President Hotel that the forum will be themed Strengthening Strategic Partnerships for Development.

She said the purpose of the event is to discuss issues of national interest raised by the NGO community in the past two years.

“Some of these include legislative and policy conflicts experienced by the NGO sector in implementing their mandate, strengthening of the consultative processes between government and the NGO sector, especially in formulating national development plans, providing space for NGOs to engage with government and stakeholders on their achievements and challenges,” she said.

Ms Kethusegile indicated that the forum was held after attending an Open Government Partnership Initiative Conference in Tanzania.

“The benchmarking was an eye opener in the area of government and civil society organisations engagement in setting national priorities. It also emphasises on the accountability of each stakeholder in implementation, which calls for regular interactive review meetings involving all stakeholders,” she said. 

For his part, council member, Pastor Owen Isaacs, said BOCONGO continues to treasure the relationship it has with media practitioners.

 He said that the council needs to disseminate information about its operations to the NGO community and the rest of the nation. “The media is our key strategic partners that we identified during the development of our strategic plan,” he said. Ends