29 Mar 2017

The National Development Plan, NDP 11 whose theme is Inclusive Growth for Realisation of Employment Creation and Poverty Eradication, challenged all to formulate strategies and initiatives to address the growing problems of unemployment and income inequality.
Speaking at the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Companies and Intellectual Property Authority (CIPA) and the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development on Tuesday, CIPA registrar general, Mr Conductor Masena said the signing aimed at offering enhanced opportunities for the youth to register and venture into businesses as well as to realise their full potential in their crafts.
Mr Masena said the memorandum was also a milestone towards a concerted approach to empowering the youth by bringing CIPA services closer to the youth as well as developing creative industries at large.
He said the youth constituted a significant proportion of Botswana’s populace and were the most exposed group to the full effects of unemployment.
“Our quest therefore at CIPA is to create a conducive business environment by making our services more accessible to all Batswana, hence our vision to contribute to making Botswana the number one business destination in Africa by the year 2020,” he stated.
He further said in order to achieve the vision, it was essential for CIPA to collaborate with key stakeholders like the youth ministry to harness their competitive advantage in order to contribute positively to the ease of doing business in Botswana.
He added that with the youth ministry wide office footprint in all districts in Botswana, the ministry was best placed to provide an opportunity to bring CIPA services closer to the youth and arts and culture practitioners in the districts to enable better communication links.
Mr Masena pointed out that as a driver of youth empowerment programmes, the ministry was a critical partner of CIPA as they both had an existing intertwined relationship with regards to Botswana’s creative industries.
He said CIPA’s duty was to protect and grow the creative industries through grants from the Levy on Technical Devices Fund while the ministry had to ensure growth and empowerment of industries.
He said CIPA would provide training as well as information sharing regarding its products and services to the ministry liaison officers, adding that they would act as a link between the youth and the arts and culture practitioners in the districts.
He further stated the ministry would mobilise youth and practitioners to access business registration services in their respective districts, while CIPA would ensure that youth businesses were duly registered and complied with applicable laws.
Mr Masena said the MOU also provided opportunity for CIPA and the ministry to work together towards supporting growth of the creative industries through initiatives such as conducting joint outreach and sensitisation programmes aimed at empowering the youth and the creative industries.
Further, he said the MoU presented a greater opportunity for undertaking studies and surveys that would better inform policy and the need for legislative reforms necessary for the growth of the creative industries and enhanced facilitation of business registration.
“Certainly there is more room for collaboration and chance for tapping into uncharted areas such as effective partnership in anti-piracy campaigns, guarding against the abuse of ITC for infringement on Intellectual Property rights of holders and more generally, promoting the upkeep of cultural norms through literary and artistic works,” he stated.
Mr Masena said CIPA was also tasked with the responsibility to implement the ease of doing business reforms, which included among others, providing online business registration services, adoption and implementation of a unique identification number and facilitating the uptake of both by the various stakeholders providing services to businesses in Botswana.
He therefore said the signing of the MoU could be viewed as a step in the right direction towards on-boarding all stakeholders that had a role to play in improving the doing business environment in Botswana.
Permanent secretary in the youth ministry, Mr Kago Ramokate said they were interested in looking after the youth so as to have a meaningful contribution in the economy of Botswana.
He said they were also looking at the interest of mass participation, competitiveness and excellence among the young people.
He said collaboration was timely as it would help support training for the youth and capacity building.
He said the youth in creative industry and young entrepreneurship had been lagging behind in training, adding that therefore they would have training in such issues, including basic entrepreneurship, basic marketing, company registration, law and general management of the company.
Nevertheless, Mr Ramokate decried that the creative industry had not been forthcoming in terms of company registration, saying they should then take advantage to get benefits associated with the signing, so that they be able to create employment even for their peers.
Mr Ramokate said signing with CIPA represented a great milestone for collaborative efforts between the two organisations and would assist in providing a more committed and structured approach to tackling youth unemployment and improving the quality of Botswana’s creative industries. ENDS