13 Jul 2017

Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing Development Mr Dikagiso Mokotedi says the New Urban Agenda Workshop is a vehicle through which Botswana as a country will be able to forge forward in a manner that is more structured socially, economically and politically acceptable.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the workshop, Mr Mokotedi said the workshop had raised awareness on New Urban Agenda as to enable the country to integrate it in the developmental processes.

Mr Mokotedi said this was important because the country could not attend to this particular agenda item as a stand-alone activity citing that it had to be integrated in their way of thinking, plans, budgets and methodologies of executing projects in this country so that it became a norm as opposed to exception of how things were being done.

He said  as Botswana’s mission in Kenya was chairing the Africa group and they should lead by example and urged all not to say things in meetings only to fail in acting on them.

“It is therefore critical that we give our embassy the support it requires so that it deliberates and represents us well,” he said .

He urged all organisations to support and embrace this agenda so that together as a country could move Botswana forwards with great speed and courage because of the support of the UNHABITAT specialist.

Mr Mokotedi noted that the ideals of the New Urban Agenda were not very far from what the country had been practicing but the only thing that had to be done was to learn from others and enrich the manner in which they had been executing the development programmes in the country.

Deputy Permanent Secretary -Housing, Ms Esther Serati said one of the issues that the workshop had to  do was refine the action plan as there were some gaps, look at all comments and put them forward for adoption in order that they could own them.

Ms Serati that they had to identify priorities by detecting the low hanging fruits at the same time conducting proper monitoring and having a robust reporting template.

He said New Urban Agenda was a multi-stakeholder process as all had a role to play in this process adding that there was need to develop land allocation policy.BOPA