12 Feb 2019

Government will continue to break the vicious cycle of poverty through empowering Batswana, Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Machana Shamukuni, has said.

Briefing the media on February 11, he said government continued to promote programmes and policies geared at eradicating abject poverty.

“It is our goal as government that there should be no able bodied Motswana who is left behind in the socio-economic development of our country,” he said.

It is against this background that the National Poverty Eradication Workshop and Expo would be held this week to facilitate exposure to the market of products and services provided by those packaged under the Poverty Eradication Programme.

Mr Shamukuni said the workshop, which started in gaborone yesterday, would review poverty eradication initiatives and the role of various stakeholders.

It would also review governance of Poverty Eradication Programmes and validation of the Draft Poverty Eradication Strategy.

Participants were drawn from key stakeholders that included civil society, research institutions, Statistics Botswana, local authorities, private sector as well as Poverty Eradication Programme beneficiaries.  

Mr Shamukuni said government was doing well since poverty incidents decreased over the past six years from 19.3 per cent to 16.3 per cent and people living under extreme poverty levels decreased from 6.4 per cent to 5.8 per cent.

“In my view, this is progress and over the past few years, we have funded 33 000 projects, of which 26 000 are operational”.

Furthermore, Mr Shamukuni said there would be a National Poverty Eradication Expo scheduled for Friday and would be officially opened by President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi.

Atleast 140 beneficiaries would be expected to showcase their products and services from various districts drawn from 45 existing packages as well as key projects such as small medium machinery products.

Mr Shamukuni further said government intended to ensure that beneficiaries grew their enterprises, and that those excelling assisted to increase their operations scale. ends