29 Oct 2020

Botswana Association for Local Authorities (BALA) Programme Officer, Ms Mpho Mfosi says the role of political leaders is to inform as well as to communicate regularly and effectively.

Ms Mfosi said this on October 27 during a four-day councillors’ capacity building workshop held in Letlhakane. 

She said Local Economic Development (LED) was an approach to development that enabled stakeholders in different localities across the country, to identify their development challenges and needs.

 She noted that they had to mobilise internal and external resources and take joint action to grow and diversify their economies.

 She also urged councillors to forge functional relationships by building endogenous capacity of all stakeholders to act collectively in building inclusive economies.

Ms Mfosi said the informal sector was meant to improve the relationship between the council and the micro sector, and also form a feedback mechanism to support local economic growth.

She also said councillors had to ensure prosperity and achieve, improved market and public confidence in their councils and introduce sustainable community investment programmes.

She said some of the development challenges were dependence on a single economic sector, unemployment and top-down planning system, which resulted in poverty, inequality and exclusion. Ends