Africa-Press – Botswana. Botswana’s aspirations of achieving a high-income economy status are dependent on the 1+3 Model.
The 1+3 model is Vision 2036 pillars for the strategy framework used to inform the National Transformation Strategy (NTS).
Explaining the model during the National Planning Commission (NPC) media brief on Tuesday, NPC Assistant Commissioner General-Policy and Strategy Mr David Sefawe said pillar 1 of the Vision 2036 (Sustainable Economic Development) was considered as the ultimate outcome to achieve the high-income economy status.
“The other three pillars; Human and Social Development, Sustainable Environment as well as Governance, Peace and Security are enablers to pillar 1, hence the 1+3 model,” explained Mr Sefawe.
He said to advance economic growth, inclusivity for all is important where all national stakeholders such as the public, private and development partners collaborate to achieve that.
Mr Sefawe said the 1+3 model was sector-based with the theme, ‘Innovating for Economic Growth,’ with eight sector priorities, which would lead to achieving the high-income economy.
Mining, tourism, agriculture, manufacturing, transport and logistics, trade, sports and creative industries, financial as well as real estate and business are the priority sectors to achieve the high income economy and they are divided into mature and growth sectors.
Mining, trade and financial are considered mature sectors whilst the rest of the sectors are classified as growth ones. Mr Sefawe said growth sectors had the potential to increase the GDP as well as create employment.
Additionally, Mr Sefawe said to achieve a sustainable economic development, there was need to diversify private sector-led export economy.
He said Botswana had over the years failed to diversify from minerals, particularly diamonds. He said the time is now to diversify.
To achieve the high-income economy status, Mr Sefawe said the Commission had set targets.
He said achieving six per cent annual rate of growth of real GDP by 2030, compared to the current 4.2 per cent of 2022, and the GNI per capita of US$10 000 by 2030 compared to US$6 430 of 2022, being on top 50 of economic complexity ranking by 2030 compared to being ranked 115 in 2020 by Harvard, are some of the performance indicators under pillar 1 of Vision 2036.
Regarding targets under economic enablers of pillars two to four, Mr Sefawe highlighted to be in the top 20 in the world by 2030 compared to being number 57 in 2022 on gross domestic expenditure, to be ranked top 50 in the world by 2030 on quality infrastructure compared to 94 in 2021 as ranked by the Global Quality Infrastructure Index Programme.
He also added that the Commission was planning to improve delivery structures and have improved implementation of programmes/projects at 70 per cent by 2030 compared to 13 per cent in 2022.
Meanwhile, Assistant Commissioner General – National Planning Commission, Ms Koontse Mokgwathi said in order to accelerate Botswana’s economic performance, there is need to drive all four pillars of Vision 2036 and coordinate and monitor implementation across all the affected sectors.
She said programmes and projects for NDP 12 should be aligned with the NTS 1+3 model and objectives.
“These include appraisal and selection of programmes and projects. Thorough adherence to this model will ensure that the programmes and projects implemented will deliver value and drive the attainment of NTSs strategic objectives,” Ms Mokgwathi said.
She said implementation has been a long-standing challenge for Botswana, wherein resources had been allocated each year to development projects.
However, deficiency in planning has contributed to poor implementation that has resulted in low return on investment.
Ms Mokgwathi said contributing factors to these challenges included programmes and project selection, project and planning implementation, policy development and coordination, high levels of corruption and monitoring and evaluation.
She therefore said the NPC would oversee the delivery of the NTS across the nation, playing a strategic coordinating role of providing inclusive leadership in national strategy development, planning, implementation coordination as well as performance monitoring and evaluation.
To drive the NTS and Vision 2036, it is important to have aligned systems to sustain national performance and Ms Mokgwathi said the planning cycle would align with the electoral cycle in that regard.
Subsequent to the approval of the NTS by Cabinet, Ms Mokgwathi said the NPC would cascade to all stakeholders to familiarise them with strategy direction, approaches, strategic objectives and their role in the implementation process.
“The importance of cascading the strategy is to cultivate its ownership and buy-in, and the objectives of the NTS are to be achieved through a sector-based strategy whose development will be guided by the NPC,” she said. Furthermore, she said the NTS has indicators, which will be used to monitor the progress of the implementation in every pillar of the strategy, and will be provided on semi-annual basis.
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