Africa-Press – Botswana. Innovators and entrepreneurs should lead country’s transition into a knowledge-based economy, President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi has said.
Speaking on the occasion of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)’s 2023 Foundry Fellows-Botswana eco-system tour, President Masisi said it was through institutions such as the Botswana Digital and Innovation Hub (BDIH) that the nation looked forward to realising a thriving tech-driven and innovation-led economy.
He said MIT’s continued collaboration with the BDIH team was an example of public and private sector partnership towards realising a diversified, knowledge-based economy.
President Masisi said government regarded entrepreneurship and innovation as key to unlocking the nation’s potential, the same way as natural resources. To foster the growth of entrepreneurship and innovation in Botswana, President Masisi noted that government had established the Ministry of Entrepreneurship, and a robust set of policies and legislation to support entrepreneurs and innovators.
He said government had always recognised the need to diversify the economy away from natural resources and had over the years actively taken steps to bring about the diversification.
Importantly, he stated, a large share of investment in the development of human capital continued to be a budgetary norm, adding that for years more than 20 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product had been allocated to financing education and training.
He cautioned that good policies alone would not bring about the envisioned transformation, growth and development without the requisite efforts of entrepreneurs innovators.
“Other knowledge economy ecosystem players, such as universities, research institutions, providers of risk capital, corporates, philanthropic capital providers and the media need to also be intentional about Botswana achieving the Vision 2036 targets,” President Masisi said.
He said the country’s aspirations espoused in the national Vision 2036: Achieving Prosperity for All, have foregrounded a long-term strategic development plan that sees Botswana transforming into a knowledge-based economy.
Furthermore, President Masisi indicated that government had adopted the Reset Agenda, which, among its five pillars, aimed at driving change of mindsets and embracing new ways of doing things.
“At the centre of this agenda is the need to drive an entrepreneurial and innovative mindset among our people,” he said.
He said having sustained almost 60 years of continuous improvements in the standard of living for Batswana, failing to diversify the revenue streams would inevitably lead to falling standards, thus he highlighted the urgency to transform Botswana’s economy.
The President said commitment to the principle of economic transformation required the development of appropriate policies, programmes and projects to effect the necessary changes in peoples’ livelihoods, through appropriate innovations and entrepreneurial interventions.
“More importantly, it requires working together across many fronts of bringing about transformations of people’s livelihoods by paying attention to the indicators or conditions that constitute the basis of positive social development, otherwise called sustainable economic growth and shared prosperity,” he said.Dr Masisi said there was a lot to learn from the initiatives of the Legatum Group at the MIT as they had come up with an array of specially tailored leadership and entrepreneurship programmes, frameworks and modules for immersion in real life contexts of learning.
He, therefore, encouraged Legatum Group to explore working with local entrepreneurs and innovators.
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