04 Jun 2019

With the gradual effects of the economic meltdown being felt the world over, SOS children’s villages world-wide are feeling the pinch as funding falls short of required targets.

After  considerations that Botswana is a middle income country, SOS Botswana, like many other children’s villages, will gradually stop receiving international funding.

According to the national director of SOS children’s villages in Botswana Mr Motshwari Kitso, considerations made based on the growth cluster of Botswana, put SOS on a self-sustaining model, meaning that the potential to raise funds for itself are high.

“This means that SOS Botswana will stop receiving international funding in 2020,’’ he said.

Mr Kitso said currently international funding had dropped to 40 per cent of the original funding that they received and would continue to  drop as the years progress to 2020.

This, he said  would mark a sharp decline of the amounts necessary to cover the running costs of SOS.

Mr Kitso said that they currently received 16 per cent of the funding they needed for running costs from government, but said that this only made up a third of the running costs.

He  said that the ceasing of international  funding would therefore dent their operations and affect the care that they gave to children in their villages, if the government, being the duty bearer, does not accede to their call for an increase of 50 per cent in funding.

He further said that local funding strategies did not meet targets as the fundraising climate in the country was not very conducive.

Moreover, Mr Kitso said because of SOS’s brand position, most people and potential donors assumed that they had enough funding.

He however said SOS had come up with a capacity building strategy that would be used to ensure that SOS stays afloat after 2020.

He said they had funded a legal and budgetary funding study that they envisaged to offer solutions for the SOS.

Further, SOS’s financial controller, Mr Rafael Chifana acknowledged that SOS Botswana had the potential to be self-sustaining although there were challenges in the social and corporate sphere.

He said their current strategy aimed at moving away from once-off donations towards unlocking value out of existing resources in order to get more benefits.

In addition to the strategies they had, Mr Chifana said the corporate world, through their legacy projects such as building halls in some of their children’s home was a welcome move that would be sustainable enough to give them revenue.

Mr Chifana revealed that SOS also planned to utilise much of the vacant land they held in order to ensure they create a source of revenue from it.

However, he said they still needed more knowledgeable people, resources, personnel and ideas in order to actualise the strategies they had in order to ensure SOS was self-sustainable as much as possible. ENDS