Civil societies key to Vision 2036 drive- Molomo
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Tuesday October 5, 2021 10:11
Addressing different stakeholders on a capacity-strengthening workshop during the Vision 2036 Commemorative Month of September, Vision 2036 Council chief executive officer (CEO) , Christopher Molomo said CSOs are key partners towards realising Vision 2036. He also acknowledged that they are aware of some of the lessons they should have learnt from Vision 2016, which include the establishment of a forum that would ensure that all those who are required for delivery of the vision are brought on board so that there is constructive engagement.
“We have not been able to put together a good infrastructure for getting engagement of potential partners. In particular, Civil Society who are very key partner in terms of delivering the Vision. One of the key impediments has been the capacity at the secretariat level. You may realise that we have three members of the secretariat where I am a CEO and two directors that we have. We are currently working with government to ensure that necessary structures are put in place so that we are able to service whatever structures or initiatives we put on place,” he said.
Molomo added that they were looking forward working with CSOs saying there are two areas they wanted to focus on such as communication; where they would take the vision, where the people would understand what the vision is all about, take the ownership of the vision and people to understand the roles they must play in their various capacities for delivery of the vision. The second area that he said is also key is monitoring and evaluation.
He explained that there was a lot of effort that was currently on going within the public sector. Molomo stated that they would like to partner with CSOs and make time to sit down and see the extent to which their programs are aligned to Vision 2036 and how together they could assist each other to monitor and evaluate whatever programs they had in place.
For his part executive director of BOCONGO, Monametsi Sokwe said CSOs are disengaged in a lot of things including their role in Vision 2036 saying that was why at some point people feel that they are a bit antagonistic. He added that they were not antagonist but rather there is lack of understanding clarity of their role in the vision. Sokwe also said as CSOs they wanted to take pride in Vision 2036 because whatever they did was aligned to what the vision aims to achieve. He pointed out that they wanted CSOs to be highlighted in terms of the monitoring and evaluation of things.
“We want to report. We are in the view that sometimes the contribution of civil society does not filter through in a lot of our strategies while civil society is doing a lot of things, where does it end up? How do we report through the vision 2036 mechanisms such that we can highlight and see where exactly the success are and where the challenges.Sometimes success of our engagements of strategies also depends on communication to the people by the people. In most cases our government is good at some sort of communication. Sometimes it is best the communication comes to communities multifaceted so that a lot of times we avoid mo Batswana batla nnang ba re mananeo a puso,” he stated.
Sokwe said sometimes the public does not regard itself as part of the vision. He added that it was time to move away from giving the nation the impression that all initiatives belong to the government than the nation. He said through Vision 2036, the public must be proud of it and know that it belongs to them. He said its high time Batswana felt included in the vision and take pride in it.