24 Mar 2022

Parliament has heard that in the period before the advent of COVID-19, the Vision 2036 Counci,l through its coordinating agency, engaged actively with leadership in ministries promoting deeper appreciation of the Vision, particularly its relevance to their respective mandates.  

In response to questions on Wednesday, presidential affairs, governance and public administration assistant minister, Mr Dumezweni Mthimkhulu indicated that it was demonstrated how the Vision should be mainstreamed into the annual strategic planning processes.

“To this end, ministries were asked to employ and deploy their already existing structures to implement and disseminate the Vision information using NDPs as the vehicle for delivery. Parallel to this engagement, the leadership of a number of local authorities were also brought on board to promote understanding and ownership of the Vision. Again, it was encouraged that the Vision was delivered through implementation of UDC or DDCs using existing structures,” Mr Mthimkhulu said.

To that end, the assistant minister said the planners in the districts visited were coached on how to align and integrate the Vision into the planning processes.

He indicated that creation of new structures had been discouraged to ensure that existing structures were used optimally without the need for additional resources.

“Following the relaxation of physical movement, which had been curtailed by COVID-19, a number of kgotla meetings had been addressed as part of the efforts to engage the general public to understand, own and live the Vision,” he said.

Further, he told Parliament that the Reset Agenda was not a separate agenda from Vision 2036, saying ‘this Agenda, which is constituted by five priorities, defines broad strategies for implementing the Vision by identifying new people-centric priorities for the nation and the whole government. It is about implementing change management. These priorities are aligned to Vision 2036.”

Gaborone North MP, Mr Mpho Balopi had asked the minister to update Parliament on progress made towards gaining traction for the National Vision 2036.

Mr Balopi also wanted to know steps that had been taken to ensure that the Vision was disseminated to Batswana so that they owned and lived it. Again, the legislator wanted to know how the Reset Agenda and Vision 2036 had been aligned so to have synergies in implementation. ENDS