13 Feb 2019

President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi says the just ended African Union summit afforded him a platform to meet a number of African leaders in one place.

  In an interview, Dr Masisi said he managed to meet leaders of Egypt, Niger, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, Kenya, Eswatini, Lesotho, South Africa and Namibia, among others, to discuss issues of mutual interest.

He said he also got an opportunity to market Botswana and to encourage foreign investors to take advantage of the political stability in the country.

Citing his meeting with the president of Niger, Mr Mahamadou Issoufou, President Masisi said he requested that his country  utilise the drugs produced by Botswana Vaccine Institute (BVI) to upgrade the quality of the over 10 million cattle Niger had.

Dr Masisi said this would be a win-win situation for both countries as Niger would improve the quality of its cattle, while Botswana would benefit from the sales of drugs and in the process create job opportunities for Batswana.

He said President Issoufou promised a working visit to Botswana to further deliberate on the matter and visit BVI as well as the Botswana Meat Commission from which the two countries would forge ways of benefiting.

Apart from the sideline meetings with other African leaders, Dr Masisi said during the summit, Botswana signed the African Free Trade Agreement which he said was a big step that would accord Botswana liberty to freely trade with other African countries.

This, he said therefore called on Batswana to produce commodities of good quality with reasonable pricing to export to the rest of Africa. 

Noting that Botswana produced high quality beef, President Masisi said other African countries such as Seychelles were interested in the product with the same pricing as that of the European Union. 

He noted that if the diamond industry was diversified, Africans in the middle income class could buy Botswana diamond products. 

Dr Masisi said his visit to Ethiopia was an eye opener as forums that he attended such as the Africa Agriculture Transformation Scorecard (AATS) and the African Leaders for Nutrition afforded him an opportunity to share ideas and experiences with other leaders.

On the issue of the malnourished children as reflected by the continental nutrition accountability scorecard,  Dr Masisi said Botswana had policies in place and even produced fortified food, Tsabana, which was not only known locally but in some African countries as well. 

He said the distribution of Tsabana at clinics came through a policy that was aimed at addressing malnutrition in under fives.

The President said still of concern was the fact that some parents were not feeding children Tsabana, adding that malnutrition was dangerous as it could affect  brain formation at infancy stage.

He said programmes such as Intergrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture Development (ISPAAD) were aimed at ensuring food security as farmers were given seeds able to withstand the harsh weather conditions due to climate change. 

ends