23 Oct 2017

Three envoys have, yesterday (October 23) presented their letters of credence to President Lt Gen. Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama. 

The three are High Commissioner for Malawi to Botswana Prof. Chrissie Kaponda, Ambassador of Argentina to Botswana, Mr Javier Figueroa and Ambassador of Tunisia to Botswana, Ms Narjes Dridi.

Ambassador Figueroa said in an interview that there was a lot that his country could learn from Botswana in the area of wildlife and conservation of natural resources as Botswana was endowed in that area. 

He said he was looking forward to exploring bilateral relations in agro-business because Argentina was a power house when it comes to cattle genetic breeding.

“My country can provide technology that improves cattle breeding that will benefit Botswana’s beef industry,” he said.

Ambassador Figueroa said he would present the idea of signing MoU with the Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Culture Development that will assist in the development of sports as his country could offer technical assistance to Botswana in different sporting codes especially football. 

Tunisia’s ambassador, Ms Dridi said Botswana continued to uphold democratic values which she said provided an example to many African countries. 

She said Tunisia could learn a lot from Botswana’s success story in terms of maintaining its democratic transition.

“Tunisia has transitioned to a functioning democracy but we can learn so much from Botswana especially with regards to respect for rule of law, transparency and accountability to citizens,” she said.

She further said she intends to foster relations that can grow business opportunities for Batswana and Tunisians, ensuring that Batswana companies invest in Tunisia and vice versa.

“We have had successful business relationships with other countries in Africa by identifying each other’s needs and skills sharing, we have successfully done so with other countries in Africa,” she said.

Prof Kaponda of Malawi said Botswana and Malawi had excellent relations that dated from far and that Botswana continued to support Malawi in many ways.

She said the two countries could cooperate in skills sharing adding that her government may benefit from training of human resources and that her country could learn a lot from Botswana in the area of security.

Prof. Kaponda said Botswana could learn from Malawi some of the interventions geared towards reduction of maternal mortality and HIV new infections which has helped her country lower the figures through the use of social learning theory where they engaged small groups of people to dialogue on issues of behavioural change at village level.

The three envoys will be based at the mission in Pretoria, South Africa. ENDS