30 Aug 2023

The partnership between Lobatse Town Council (LTC) and Bollnas Municipality in Sweden presents opportunities for Lobatse to improve its cultural heritage preservation strategies, says the Mayor of Lobatse, Mr Mosimanegape Dithebe.

Welcoming a delegation of Bollnas Municipality who are on a four-day visit to Lobatse on Tuesday, Mr Dithebe said LTC and Bollnas Municipality established a partnership through the Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD) in 2020.

Their partnership, he said, focused on youth inclusiveness in local society with special emphasis on local cultural heritage.

Mr Dithebe said they partnered with the Bollnas Municipality because the two entities shared common interests on issues of culture and heritage. He stated that ICLD Program promoted development of sustainable local democracy to create opportunities for the poor. The ICLD core values included transparency, accountability and inclusive participation.

“Last year my team and I visited Bollnas,” he said. “We were so impressed by the way in which you have preserved your culture, and that has really motivated us to try by all means to come up with the way in which we can hoist our standard to improve where we are at the moment.”

Mr Dithebe said partnering with Bollnas Municipality was an  opportunity which presented many possibilities for his town, since Lobatse was a unique town with a landscape and history totally different from other places in Botswana.

“Lobatse, as a town of firsts, has a rich history on issues of culture and heritage,” he said.

A member of the partnership committee, Ms Bonno Mmusi, said one such uniqueness came from the fact that colonial administration was set up in Lobatse in the 1800s.

The town housed many liberation struggle icons from southern Africa who contributed to the liberation of their countries. Lobatse hosted the first legislative council and also had the first five kilometres of tarred road in the country.

ICLD Program Country Mentor, Dr Maude Dikobe, said the mission of ICLD was to support democratic participation and promote change at local level with focus on democracy. The program was also anchored on fair and inclusive treatment of citizens, and promotion of active participation of citizens of every age in local issues.

Dr Dikobe said it promoted transparency in decision making, and accountability by the authority at local level. She said the visit between Lobatse and Bollnas was intended to share experiences.

The Head of Cultural Department in the Bollnas Municipality, Ms Hellen Berggren, said Bollnas was rich in cultural heritage, with a  landscape that has mountains and water. The population of the province was 27,000 people while Bollnas has 13,500 people.