10 Aug 2026

The Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) has announced a shift from funding individual businesses to financing an entire value chain in an endeavour to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs.

Speaking during the Northern Business Leadership Expo 2026 in Francistown, CEDA caretaker chief executive officer, Mr Khalala Mokefane said the agency’s mandate was evolving beyond providing capital to building entrepreneurs and strengthening businesses to withstand market pressures.

He said while CEDA was established to finance citizen enterprises that might not ordinarily access commercial funding, experience had shown that money alone did not guarantee success.

Many businesses fail due to weaknesses in governance, record-keeping, pricing and market strategy, which is why CEDA is now prioritising a capacitation-first approach to make entrepreneurs bankable and investment-ready, Mr Mokefane said.He stated that CEDA was increasingly directing support toward connected industries rather than isolated projects. 

Mr Mokefane cited the A-Di-Tsale Finance Suite and the Revamped Poultry Finance Suite as examples of how the agency was opening opportunities across feed supply, veterinary services, transport, processing, packaging and retail so that businesses could grow within a supportive ecosystem.

He also highlighted the repositioning of the Letsema Horticulture Market into a national market system.

The challenge he explained had never been shortage of farmers but the absence of structured markets.

Mr Mokefane said the Francistown Collection Centre, which CEDA and the Ministry of Trade and Entrepreneurship would operationalise in the coming days, was designed to bring the market closer to farmers while creating opportunities in logistics, cold chain, packaging, agri-tech, processing and export services.

Between 2021 and 2025, CEDA injected more than P1.9 billion into the economy, creating approximately 2 000 jobs annually and sustaining a further 1 000, Mr Mokefane explained 

He added that as government advanced Vision 2036, the 12th National Development Plan and the Botswana Economic Transformation Programme, the country was moving from growth to transformation, a shift that required productive industries and globally competitive citizen-owned enterprises.

“Botswana’s future will not be determined only by the resources beneath our soil, but by the enterprises built by our people. Together, let us build an economy driven by citizen enterprise, innovation and resilience. Together, let us continue: Building Batswana, for Botswana,” said Mr Mokefane. ENDS