24 Aug 2022

Botswana has signed the SADC charter on Women in Science, Engineering and Technology organisation.

Minister of Communications, Knowledge and Technology, Mr Thulagano Segokgo signed the charter at the start of the national science week in Masunga on Tuesday.

The charter aims to enhance full participation of women in SADC’s social-economic development of their respective countries through the application of scientific knowledge and technological innovation.

Botswana is the 11^th SADC country to undertake to fully implement the SADC Charter on Women in Science, Engineering and Technology, some years after it was approved by the regional bloc.

The national science week also saw the launch of the Science Communication and Public Engagement Strategy, designed for undergraduates who are interested in the sciences or engineering and would like to learn how to use a wide variety of communication tools for engaging publics, including non-technical audiences and policymakers.

Mr Segokgo explained that the signing of the women in science, engineering, technology, and innovation organisation charter was a milestone that Botswana had undertaken in support of women in the fields of technology. 

Meanwhile, he said this year’s National Science week was a unique and special one as it was the first since the outbreak of COVID-19.

He said President, Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi had given all the ministries a clear roadmap to restore the country to normalcy through the Reset Agenda.

He explained that a major application of science that Botswana had celebrated as was the discovery of the Omicron variant.

Minister Segokgo said this was one of the on-going research that his ministry supported and focused on using mathematics to devise strategies for managing COVID-19.

He said the result of the research was to set to place Batswana citizens in a safe position in relation to COVID-19.

Mr Segokgo further stated that another related research was on developing rapid field testing kits for detecting the Food and Mouth Disease on site, to help in the monitoring of the disease before it impacted on the cattle population.

He said research generated knowledge that was necessary for designing programmes that would help the country to fight the ills left behind by the pandemic.

He said it was a fact that increased research and innovation activities spur the economy to greater levels of economic growth and wealth.

Mr Segokgo therefore said for Botswana to achieve the high income status, it had to increase locally produced products and services that the world needed.

“Thus, science, technology, engineering and mathematics applications should be at highest levels,” he added.

He said Botswana was part of the large global village in which the rules of existence were different from what the country experienced daily, making it easy to get excluded.

Mr Segokgo explained that the worldwide digital divide was limiting inclusion of the poor and marginalised in key developments.

"The Reset Agenda priority of digitilisation speaks to inclusivity, which the Botswana digital transformation strategy, dubbed Smart Botswana is focused on,” he added.

Mr Segokgo said SmartBots, intended to improve efficiency and productivity of both the public and private sectors, by enabling wider access of Batswana to participate in the economy to deliver and to receive services.

He said once connected, Batswana should be able to access services provided by the government and its partners from anywhere, anytime.

Mr Segokgo said his ministry had commissioned projects throughout the country to ramp-up information communication technologies infrastructure, to improve national network connectivity . BOPA