06 Jun 2013

The acting deputy director of Okavango Research Institute, (ORI) Professor Joseph Mbaiwa says 60 per cent of their funding comes from international donors.

Presenting the research management report before the advisory committee, Professor Mbaiwa said  government and the University of Botswana were assisting but the institute mainly survived on the money from outside the country.

He said their effort to forge a partnership with the private sector was not bearing the desired fruits, noting that recently a few pledged to fund some of their students. Prof Mbaiwa noted that there was need for the institute to engage in an aggressive fundraising campaign with a view to generate more funds for the survival of the institute and drive research.

He said the Southern African Science Service Center for Climatic and Adaptive Land Management (SASSCAL) had pledged P9 million to sponsor four projects noting that the funds would be dispatched on quarterly basis until 2014. The SASSCAL was a joint initiative of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Germany responding to the challenges of climate change.

Prof Mbaiwa explained that SASSCAL project researchers at ORI had agreed to employ a project assistant to coordinate activities of all the projects. He mentioned that there were other ORI funded projects by Office of Research Development (ORD) at the University of Botswana while other projects were externally funded.

The report also indicated that the institute had a number of academic staff members retiring, resigning or moving on to other institutions, adding that the institute had difficulties in recruiting scholars and as a result a number of positions remained vacant. ORI has a total of 33 academic positions in the establishment and over half of the positions are vacant.

For their part, members advised ORI management to make their voice heard to attract more donors. They said research was not a given priority noting generally there was a problem of funding research in Botswana.

ENDS