New Hope Against Poverty In P170m Project
Boniface Keakabetse | Monday November 23, 2015 18:00
With the project, the government and the UNDP are hopeful to eradicate poverty in three districts in the north. The northern project in Makgadikgadi, Ngamiland and Chobe aims to mitigate conservation threats and uplifting community livelihoods. The cumulative liquidity for the three projects funded by UNDP is approximately $17m (P170m). In an interview, environment and climate specialist at UNDP, Oduetse Koboto revealed that the implementation of Makgadikgadi project currently stands at 86 percent, Chobe at 64 percent while the Ngamiland is at 53 percent.The SLM aims to improve the integrity of the fragile ecosystems, which are the mainstay of the wildlife tourism sector and to secure the livelihoods of rangeland dependent communities.
Koboto said the projects aim to improve livelihoods through income generation saying already this is bearing fruit. Explaining further Koboto said through the Ngamiland SLM they funded the Shorobe Community Trust start-up, adding that this funding presents enormous opportunities for rural employment creation as well as income generation.
He said they did the same through Lake Ngami Community Trust, TOCADI and Habu Elephant Development Trust. He said some of the projects are the provision of conservation agriculture farming equipment and implements, which it is expected will increase yield in the next harvesting season. He said they are also providing fire-fighting equipment to the communities and government, something expected to assist in containing wild fires in biodiversity sensitive areas in Botswana, especially around the Tsodilo and Chobe National Park areas.
Koboto said through Ngamiland SLM project, they exposed the district communities and leadership to opportunities presented by the leather industry in Zimbabwe. “This was a deliberate move to achieve a district-driven agenda that will not only have the buy-in of the communities in Ngamiland but also relevant to the environment” Koboto said.
On their challenges in implementing SLM, Koboto said ideas such as conservation, agriculture, community-based fire management and forest management remain at an infancy level internationally adding that therefore it is difficult to sell them to stakeholders.
He said there is a need for change of mindset in order to embrace new ideas that could significantly contribute to the country’s GDP. He said, however, the progress made so far in all the SLM is encouraging.
For his part, deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism said the SLM runs well with his ministry’s mandate of conservation and community livelihood upliftment from sustainable use of resources.
He revealed in an interview with Monitor Business that he is hopeful that after the project’s completion there will be a lot of improvement in poverty at the three districts.
He said the three districts were chosen based on recent studies on poverty assessments in there, explaining that other reasons were the common demographic and economic challenges faced by them.