20 Jun 2022

An eSwatini Socio Economic Policy Analysis and Research Centre (ESEPARC) team yesterday visited Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis (BIDPA) to explore possibilities of sharing information and collaboration on projects with regional scope.

Explaining the team’s mission in Botswana, Dr Thabo Sacolo said it was to benchmark with BIDPA to establish and learn the best way of nurturing ESEPARC’s  performance management system.

He said another area of interest was how BIDPA engaged with government stakeholders, especially the parent ministry.

“As a government think tank, there is always that relationship with government, therefore we are here to learn how BIDPA manages tricky situations as they try to deliver on their mandate effectively,” he said.

As a new organisation established only in 2008 and coming into operation four years later, Dr Sacolo said it was critical that ESEPARC  collaborated with institutions such as BIDPA for improved performance.

He said the organisation was searching for ways of positioning  itself in the region without compromising on the quality of its output.

ESEPARC, Dr Sacolo said, wanted to have a healthy working relationship with BIDPA and other regional institutions to produce research papers that could drive policy development especially in the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) region.

BIDPA acting executive director, Dr Gloria Somolekae pointed out that Botswana and eSwatini had long standing collaborations such as in the education field which saw most Batswana furthering their studies in the then Swaziland.

“This engagement will be a continuation of the regional tradition of collaboration of mutual learning and support,” she said.

Another BIDPA official, Dr Pinkie Kebakile, stated that research was collaborative by nature and that  research institutions learnt from each other. 

Research was also revolutionary  thereby necessitating evolution over time, she said adding that BIDPA had evolved therefore  ESEPARC would have to do likewise. Ends