07 Dec 2023

Kusi Ideas Festival offers unique transformative and intentional conversation that can gauge Africa’s level of commitment to a continental vision, President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi has said.

Officiating at the fifth Kusi Ideas Festival in Tlokweng yesterday, he said the festival was a platform for conversations by thought leaders from across the continent and the diaspora to interrogate the various aspects and facets of Africa’s collective vision. He said the festival, like its previous editions, served as a great opportunity to course correct in order to enhance capacity and efficiency towards achieving continental goals.

“It is an opportunity to reflect on the successes, challenges and setbacks along this journey of Africa’s blueprint for development,” he said.

He said the African Continental Free Trade Area's (AfCFTA) ratification by African Union member states was one of Africa’s achievements, and that there should be a crystallisation of ideas and perspectives on strategies for spearheading implementation excellence.

“We need, therefore, to forge ahead with fortitude and progressively synergised regional efforts of integration that are guided by and advance all of the AfCFTA protocols,” he said.

President Masisi also said steps towards the implementation of the AfCFTA had been given impetus by policy actions taken by some countries like Kenya who had announced their intention to abolish VISA requirements from Africans travelling to Kenya.

In Botswana, he said since April there had been an initiation to make easier movement between Botswana and neighbouring countries such as Namibia and that citizens of both nations were able to travel between the two countries using only the national identity card as a travel document.

“This has clearly reduced the burden of acquisition of passports for travel to either country. It is our hope that with time this will become a feature of the sub-continent and eventually the continent as a whole,” he said.

Furthermore, President Masisi also said Kusi was a centre stage for future leaders to chart the way for the envisioned Africa as espoused in Africa’s blueprint Agenda 2063 of ‘The Africa we want’.

He said Botswana was ready to share with the rest of the continent her success story which stemmed from the fortune of maintaining political and economic stability for several decades and a multi-stakeholder consultative approach to governance.

“We have continued to put at the forefront of our collective development institutional integrity anchored on tenacious adherence to the rule of law. This has served us greatly but not without challenges. We continue to emphasise that “Ntwakgolo ke ya molomo,” or as the Akan people of Ghana would literally translate in their proverb ‘conflicts are resolved best with a tongue and not with an axe’, he said.

He urged participants to raise the bar higher in their deliberations and to be committed to investments that would make the continent a net exporter of knowledge goods rather than just an importer. 

“We need to capacitate our youth and institutions of higher learning to vigorously explore innovative solutions in the fields of agriculture, health, energy, education communication, food preservation, Artificial Intelligence and mining,” he said.

He stressed that Africa was endowed with vast natural resources that provided a foundation for unrivalled economic renaissance, and that the continent continued to be both the cradle and the future of humankind.

Meanwhile, Nation Media Group’s board chairperson, Dr Wilfred Kiboro said the festival offered a podium where Africans could discuss everything that concerned the continent.

He said through the interchange of various ideas, perspectives and proposals on issues of concern, there would emerge pointers of strategic directions that could help Africa towards fulfilling her vision.

Dr Kiboro also said the Kusi journey around Africa had revealed that the continent had the freedom to transform into a global powerhouse of a first-class nation. He said Agenda 2063 envisioned governments free from corruption and accountable to the people.

Minister for State President, Mr Kabo Morwaeng said the festival presented an opportunity to comprehensively explore the seven key aspirations of Agenda 2063 of building a prosperous Africa.

He said Botswana was determined to ensure that the festival was a success through the provision of a conducive environment and robust networks.

The two-day festival is held under the theme: Africa’s Agenda 2063, Making the Dream Come True. Ends