30 Jun 2023

Civil society organisations have embarked in a capacity-building project dubbed, Botswana Constitutional Review Process: Towards a People Driven Constitution.

The collaborative initiative, organised by Botswana Council of Non-Governmental Organisations (BOCONGO), in partnership with Ditshwanelo - the Botswana Centre for Human Rights, Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS (BONELA), Emang Basadi Association, supported by European Union and powered by Fearless Fitness Group, aimed to complement government’s efforts by ensuring full participation from an informed position by the citizens in the country’s constitutional review process.

O ne of the activities to kick start the initiative was a 21-kilometre activation run themed, Running Towards a People Driven Constitution, which was held in Gaborone recently.

In an interview, BOCONGO acting executive director, Ms Maipelo Phale said NGOs found it necessary to organise the run, as one of other planned activities, ahead of the National Assembly sitting this month, to reach out to Batswana and inform them about what the national process meant regarding their input during government’s countrywide consultations on the constitutional review process.

Ms Phale said the aim was to take the Constitution to the people after realising, from the previous consultations, that they did not know what it was all about from the deliberations they made.

“We are saying as civil society organisations we now have to stand up and complement government where it has falenl short and inform the citizenry about the Constitution so that it can be reviewed and speak to aspirations. Like the topic says, it should be a people driven Constitution, meaning it should consider people’s aspirations,” she said.

She added that the 21km activation run, which was categorised into five and 10km runs, followed the radio interviews that civil society organisations previously held around the Botswana constitutional review process as well as the planned stakeholder workshops to be held in Gaborone, Tutume, Letlhakane and Maun.

The stakeholder engagements, she said, were all aimed at informing and educating the citizenry about what the Constitution entailed and also what their input meant in the whole national constitutional review exercise.

For her part, BONELA programmes coordinator, Ms Katlego Sechele said her organisation’s role in the partnership was to ensure that the general public, including key populations such as lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and sex workers, were not left behind during the capacity-building and awareness creation initiative.

 “BONELA is also here to ensure acceptance of key populations in the communities and also educate people on how to associate with them in areas where civil society organisations planned to hold the upcoming stakeholder workshops,” she added. Ends