27 Feb 2022

There is greater need now than ever before for active community participation and involvement in mitigating the challenges of climate and ecological change, says Botswana Community Assembly Convenor, Ms Dorcas Chabanga. 

Speaking during the launch of the Botswana Community Assembly in Gaborone on Saturday, Ms Chabanga said community participation was imperative in creating climate smart, ecologically balanced and sustainable world. 

She explained that a community assembly was a group of people from different walks of life, who came together to learn about the global climate and ecological crisis, to discuss possible action and make recommendations to governments and world leaders. 

“The aim of this assembly is to share experiences and deliberate on the global climate and ecological crisis in relation to our local context, and come up with recommendations and resolutions that will be submitted to national, regional and global leaders imploring them to act through various means,” she said. 

Ms Chabanga further stated that as follow up to the UN Climate Conference COP26, which took place in Glasgow, UK in November last year, Global Assembly, a decision making body, which tapped into citizen involvement to discuss climate and ecological crisis, gathered a group of 100 people, representing a snapshot of the population of the planet to learn about climate and ecological crisis, to deliberate and share their Declaration at COP26. 

She stated that feedback gathered from the assembly discussion forum would contribute to a report that would be delivered to world leaders next month. Moreover, Ms Chabanga said the change in weather patterns such as heart waves, drying up of water sources and droughts all to a climate crisis.

 This, she said was a result of humanity’s carelessness in the use of environmentally unfriendly fossil fuels and careless destruction of forests, which offset climatic balance. 

“Ironically, in ecosystems that are managed by indigenous people, the rate of biodiversity loss is less than on the land inhabited by other human species, and hence adoption of the methods used by indigenous peoples will go a long way in preserving the environment,” she said. 

For his part, Assembly organizer, Mr Ronald Chikwenhere said since Africa had not yet seriously taken up the climate change narrative, there was need for the continent to begin rethinking the deployment of capital, as well as human resources in order to tackle the effects of climate change, which were disproportionately affecting third world countries in Africa. 

Mr Chikwenhere said the onus was on the political leaders to walk the talk while time still permitted.  

“Botswana Community Assembly will take up the responsibility to mobilise communities to reinvigorate the debate and discussions around climate and ecological crises, for it is less fortunate communities that are often on the receiving end of outdated government policies,” he stated. 

He added that the assembly would also act as a bridge between voices from below and policy makers, so that ultimately government would act through committing human and capital resources to efforts geared at curbing climate change. BOPA