Africa-Press – Botswana. The Maun based Impact Fund Company has secured a grant from the UNESCO International Fund For Cultural Diversity (IFCD) to establish an online-based cultural market place for local artisans.
Established under the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, IFCD is a voluntary multi-donor fund aimed at supporting the emergence of dynamic cultural sectors in developing countries.
The fund aims to support sustainable systems of cultural governance, create an enabling environment for cultural entrepreneurs, facilitate market access and ensure accessibility of diverse cultural expression for all. Impact Fund craft-hood and economic empowerment officer, Gosaitse Lekoko, confirmed in an interview that they had secured funding from UNESCO, which would help them to create a market place for artisans, which would be online-based.
The platform, she said, would connect buyers and sellers, providing a convenient way for buyers to find what they need. She said the grant, came after they submitted a proposal to UNSECO as they were concerned about the challenges artisans faced.
Impact fund has been working with artisans since 2014 and through their relationship, they found that they struggled to reach out to lucrative markets because of lack of knowledge on marketing strategies, low quality production development hence the proposal to UNESCO to create a market place where they could come on board to showcase and celebrate their products.
Many, she said, made appealing crafts which ended up lying in their homes with no markets, adding that through the funding, they intended to develop an online platform to market their goods and train artistisans in product development, quality control and pricing.
Lekoko also said artisans faced difficulties to profile their products as many lived in remote areas and that goods they produced were often not aligned to the market demand.
Communication and logistical issues also created challenges such as language and technological barriers hence ‘we saw it fit to come to their rescue.
We believe that the market place will address issues they faced and facilitate the flow of goods and services’.
The marketplace is expected to help artisans to expand their reach, increase sales, generate more revenue and eventually improve their livelihoods.
Impact Fund’s mandate is to support communities to have sustainable livelihoods by ensuring that they have access to the tourism value chain.
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