LocationsReshaping Botswana's Future: From Vision 2036 to Covid-19 Pandemic Lessons - A Local Manufacturing Revolution Support by UNDP Botswana Through the Sustainable Private Sector Programme
September 12, 2023
A Local Manufacturing Revolution Support by UNDP Botswana Through the Sustainable Private Sector Programme.
The Botswana Chamber of Mines, along with key corporate partners and sponsors recently hosted the inaugural Local Manufacturing Summit to bring the manufacturing and supply chain community in Botswana together.
Influenced by the national Vision 2036 and the lessons learnt from the Covid-19 pandemic, Botswana’s economy is experiencing a wave of change with respect to local manufacturing. Covid-19 pandemic buttressed the need for manufacturing capacity locally to achieve security of supply on groups of products critical to the survival of citizens owing to global and regional supply chain issues.
With a low manufacturing and production base, Botswana is heavily dependent on importation of a wide range of manufactured material goods and services. Not surprisingly, South Africa is by far Botswana’s largest import partner, accounting for 66.1 per cent of all imports (Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook, 2019). Botswana does not have the luxury of maintaining a business-as-usual approach as the country is faced with the dual challenge of a trend of declining economic growth rates on one hand and increasing unemployment rate on the other, and both of which require immediate attention.
At government level, implementation of the SPEDU Region Incentives, the 2020/21 – 2022/23 Economic Recovery and Transformation Plan (ERTP), the Reset Agenda of May 2021, the revised Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) of 2020, and the Economic Inclusion Act of 2021 bear testimony to government’s commitment to the transformation of the economy.
Botswana Chamber of Mines has always embraced a philosophy that, the entrepreneurial success of its member companies should be underpinned by social and economic development responsibility. The summit endeavours to support Botswana in her effort to address the challenges of economic diversification, economic growth, citizen economic empowerment and employment creation through promoting and supporting the growth of local manufacturing capacity for local consumption as well as various export markets. Nascent as it is, Botswana’s manufacturing sector is amid significant transformation, as industry leaders retool, reinvent, and rethink their businesses for maximum competitiveness, performance, and growth. Never have the challenges been more significant, nor the opportunities more numerous for manufacturers in Botswana than now.
The Manufacturing Summit will become an annual gathering of stakeholders from the public and private sectors across the country to take stock of the performance of the manufacturing sector, discuss current developments and concerns, and consider ways to address them. The Summit will be conducted consistently with the implementation of the Economic Inclusion Act, a local empowerment legislation which focuses on supporting and building competitive and innovative industries in the country and strengthening their linkages in national and regional production networks and global value chains.