12 Mar 2023

Mindset and behaviours that do not generally support high performance and move away from the entrenched performance culture that the Reset Agenda seeks to change has been reported as biggest challenges.

As a remedy, cultivating high performance culture within the government workforce or machinery remains key in order to deliver quality and effective service to the nation.

It is on such backdrop government would, later this year, embark on and launch a National Mindset Reset campaign to foster high performance mindset and values matching prosperity for all aspirations.

President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi is scheduled to officiate at the campaign launch.

At its core would be embedding principles and values of Botlhaga, Bofefo, Botswerere, Botho and Bonatla back into the national development framework as pillars of high performance culture.

This was revealed by Vice President, Mr Slumber Tsogwane during the Leader of the House’s question time when he updated Parliament recently on progress thus far on the Reset Agenda with five priorities which President Masisi announced in May 2021.

“The envisaged National Mindset Rest campaign, which will take place in the first quarter of the 2023/2024 financial year, will go a long way to address mindset and behaviours as it will touch every individual across sectors to change the way we currently conduct business,” Mr Tsogwane said.

He added that the campaign launch, which would be highly consultative and all-inclusive, was key in ensuring that the Reset Agenda was adopted and adapted to become part of the nation’s gene (DNA).

The Vice President also said the campaign was one of the many initiatives under the Reset Agenda already in progress to accelerate the achievement of Vision 2036.

“As government we are pleased with the progress as we are beginning to see positive improvements in line with the transformation towards the vision aspirations,” he added.

He explained that the call for Botswana to reset was necessitated by the slow pace and poor quality of delivery, resulting in the country failing to deliver the eleventh National Development Plan (NDP 11) outcomes to expectation, a situation he said would compromise attainment of Vision 2036.

“The Reset Agenda was therefore a clarion call to all citizens and residents in Botswana to reset ourselves as individuals and as a nation towards a high performance culture.

The five priorities will be the anchor of our transformation to galvanise the pace of change as well as the quality of delivery,” he said.

He said the Reset Agenda was also aimed at accelerating the attainment of the Vision 2036 aspirations to transform from the upper middle income to high income economy and ultimately achieve prosperity for all by 2036 and further address prevailing challenges of unemployment, poor project implementation, poor work ethics, corruption, low productivity and declining global competitiveness.

Mr Tsogwane said there had been notable progress on service delivery since the launch of the Reset Agenda in 2021 as several initiatives were implemented to align government machinery to the Presidential Agenda.

Progress thus far, the Vice President said, included deferring the NDP 12 to 2025/2026 financial year to align national planning with the electoral cycle.

He said the Reset Agenda also ushered establishment of the National Planning Commission to enhance coordination of national planning and implementation as well as effective monitoring and evaluation of national development process.

Further, he said the rationalisation of ministries under the Reset Agenda was key to making government machinery more efficient and responsive to the needs of many.

“The rationalisation of government portfolio, which is its self a Reset Agenda outcome, has since been completed and thereby setting in motion all the other key activities that need to take place to consolidate the exercise,” he said.

On digitalisation, Mr Tsogwane said various initiative were on track to deliver a digital economy, adding that implementation of digital transformation strategy resulted in an increase on innovation capacity with the number of innovators increasing from 400 to 2 000.

Also, he said the value chains development was also pivotal in empowering the private sector to become the engine of growth.

Mr Tsogwane lamented challenges which included, resistant mindset as shown by slow uptake of COVID-19 vaccine by some members of the public and lack of fast internet connectivity across the country which hampered the digitilisation drive despite good progress.

“Successful implementation of the Reset Agenda will emphasise the cause-and-effect relationship between annual plans and vision 2036 outcomes,” the Vice President said. Ends