19 Mar 2020

South East District Council chief health officer, Mr Setshabelo Mabitso has received Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) top prize for his action plan for waste management in the district.

Speaking at the awards ceremony held in Gaborone on Wednesday, JICA resident representative, Mr Ken Yamada said the waste management action plan would help strengthen institutional capacity of the local authority.

Mr Yamada explained that the action plan was part of a training programme by JICA, which aimed to develop human capital for Batswana by sending them for training in Japan where they would be given capacity to develop strategic plans geared towards achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the eleventh National Pevelopment Plan (NDP 11).

The programme, he added was also a co-creation initiative meant to empower participants to solve their institutional issues with cooperation and technical assistance from the Japanese.

Again, he said the programme also assisted participants to come up with cost effective means through which critical projects could be implemented.

He further said JICA would continue to offer technical assistance to the awardee and his institution through various means to ensure that the winning action plan was incorporated within adjacent societies in the South East District.

Meanwhile, Mr Mabitso, whose project beat five other competing action plans, said his action plan was a systematic waste management resolution that sought to divert 60 per cent of waste into recyclable material through a sorting source.

He said the action plan was also developed to mitigate land management issues through viable means, adding that currently, land volumes were not suitable to reduce waste footprints including improving waste collection initiatives on a commercial level.

He also said the action plan had been cascaded across all South East District Council structures and legal frameworks were being lobbied at ministry level in order to ensure that the waste management project became a success.

Moreover, he said the action plan would largely benefit from a waste management policy drafted by Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO), which would be presented to Parliament in a few weeks time.

Accordingly, once passed, the waste management policy will accommodate comprehensive legal frameworks, making it compulsory and mandatory for all citizens, residents and businesses to comply with all recycling protocols.

He added that the policy would also provide realisable gains in improving active participation of citizens and residents towards recycling efforts.

His win had seen SEDC secure a P20 000 prize money to implement the action plan. Ends