14 Nov 2021

The Study Tour Mission led by Ivory Coast Minister of Solidarity and Fight Against Poverty to Botswana to share ideas on poverty eradication bears testament to the cordial relations between the two states.

Those were the sentiments expressed by the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Eric Molale while his ministry was hosting Minister Myss Dogo and her delegation in Gaborone on Wednesday.

Mr Molale cited the previous visit by the Ivorian High Authority of Good Governance, Justice Rene Aphing-Kouassi to benchmark with the Directorate of Corruption and Economic Crime on how Botswana combats corruption.

Minister Molale said the ties between Botswana and Ivory Coast, characterised by regular consultations on various issues of mutual interest as members of the United Nations and African Union had laid the platform for deeper cooperation in the areas of poverty eradication and human development. Sharing Botswana’s experience in poverty eradication, Mr Molale said his ministry had just concluded the development of a five year Strategy and Transformation Plan (2021-2025) anchored on six pillars. The pillars of the new plan were consistent with the government’s Reset Agenda and the Economic Recovery and Transformation Plan (ERTP) as well as the ministry aspiration to lead the country towards economic and social transformation, he said.

“One of the key pillars of our five-year Strategy and Transformation Plan is the provision of shock responsive social protection services through the National Social Protection Framework (NSPF),” Mr Molale said.

He shared the country’s developmental structures, which he said followed a bottom-up approach starting at local level with dikgosi, village development committees (VDC) and its sub-committees including the Farmers Committee, Parents Teachers Association (PTA) and Health Committee.

Mr Molale said through these structures as well as local government councils, communities were able to partake in their development, which build up to national parliamentary politics and the National Development Plans (NDPs) crafted by central government.

He said policies such as the National Poverty Eradication Strategy, Social Protection Framework and Children’s Welfare Policy as well as legislation passed by the National Assembly including the Public Procurement Act and Economic Inclusion Act also assisted in social protection.

“This is done through ensuring economic inclusion and ensuring that procurement is done within the various localities to ensure that local small-scale entrepreneurs benefit,” said Mr Molale. For her part, Ms Dogo said after the Second Ivorian War of 2011, which led to the ouster of former President Laurent Gbagbo, the Ivory Coast government made the fight against poverty a priority.

She said they had thus come to learn poverty eradication “good practices” from Botswana, a country well renowned for good governance.

“We will learn from the Botswana experience and share our own from the Ivory Coast,” Ms Dogo said. The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development made presentations to the visiting party on Social Protection, Remote Area Development Programme and Supplementary Feeding Programme.ENDS