13 Oct 2022

Botswana is working towards signing MoUs on UN volunteers and junior professionals programmes to enhance chances of the country’s youth accessing available opportunities.

  This was revealed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr Lemogang Kwape when addressing the first annual Botswana Development Partners forum in Gaborone on Wednesday.

   Dr Kwape noted that the office of the UN resident coordinator supported five interns the foreign affairs ministry engaged  during  Botswana’s one-year ECOSOC presidency which ended in July.

“This is a unique and career enhancing opportunity for the interns, which I hope is a pilot to similar partnership across all UN agencies to give Botswana youth an advantage in gaining employment in the international system,” he said.

Minister Kwape said the support extended to preparations for Botswana’s presentation of its second voluntary national review of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

 Turning to the forum convened under the theme, Partnerships for increased prosperity and sustainable development for all, he said it was testament to the convivial relationship existing between government and the UN as well as its agencies.

“The partnership forum comes not long after we signed a new five-year United Nations Botswana Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for the period 2022-2026,” he said.

Noting that it also came at a time when government was in the process of finalising the 12th National Development Plan (NDP 12), he said it gave Botswana an unique opportunity to comprehensively engage on current and emerging development issues and agree on strategies for mainstreaming the cooperation framework into  national development planning.

Said Dr Kwape, “this also includes more targeted action-oriented alliances towards attaining the SDGs.”

   The minister encouraged participants to engage with stakeholders across the government spectrum and participate in project site visits to ensure that their deliberations were informed, relevant and solution-based.

 Minister Kwape also hailed the visit by UN Habitat under secretary general and executive director, Ms Maimunah Sharif saying it would  strengthen the partnership between Botswana and the organisation.

He said a series of meetings between government officials and Ms Sharif had identified a number of potential areas of growing the relationship.

The areas included collaboration opportunities to enable enhanced innovative approaches and digital transformation solutions to build smart cities in Botswana, said the minister.

He said Ms Sharif’s visit  signified the importance the UN attached to ensuring that all member states, including smaller ones such as Botswana, benefitted from the UN system.

Dr Kwape reiterated Botswana’s commitment to multilateralism anchored in the ideals of the UN Charter. ends