21 Sep 2022

Botswana has been awarded the Africa-America Institute’s 2022 national achievement award. 

 This is in recognition of the country’s commitment to regional democracy and stability as well as its focus on education, healthcare and youth development.

Receiving the award, President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi said it was a humbling honour to be  bestowed on Batswana. 

“This award follows years of channeling a considerable amount of limited resources to education, health, water, youth empowerment programmes and infrastructural development,” he said.

President Masisi said the award came at an opportune moment when government had committed to transforming Botswana’s economy from resource-based to knowledge-based. 

The President said since assuming office, he had committed to putting Batswana at the epicenter of government development agenda.

He said it was incumbent on government to build strong partnerships with development partners and allies to alleviate poverty in Botswana and build a stable and competitive economy.

President Masisi noted the country’s political leadership and its crop of highly competent technocrats had over the years committed to work within the UN’s multilateral framework whose organs capacitated government to execute the national development agenda.

He commended his predecessors for their crucial and meaningful contribution to Botswana’s success story. 

“Today Botswana is regarded as an upper middle income country  with the aim of positioning it to become a high income country by 2036,” he said.

Dr Masisi said the national vision envisaged building and transforming existing institutions  as well as rethinking ways  of doing business.

In order to achieve that, government  had since introduced the RESET Agenda and improved value chain development to unlock opportunities in key sectors of the economy, the President said.

The agenda, he said, came about as a strategic response to the onslaught of COVID-19 and its devastations on the economy.

President Masisi said government planned to identify new products in the global export space that could  be successfully manufactured  in Botswana.

The intention was to create employment, especially for the youth, and drive export diversification, he said. 

The President also spoke of government’s commitment to good governance, democracy and the rule of law.

He said peace and unity were the pillars of Botswana‘s democratic dispensation.

President Masisi said Botswana was fully behind efforts to promote dialogue on constitutionalism, presidential term limits and peaceful transition of power in Africa. Ends