BVI turns adversity into blessing

| Thursday May 3, 2012 00:00

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and here it must be said that the Botswana Vaccine Institute (BVI) and its partners have lived up to the adage.

Sharing a long border with a failed state has had its toll in nearly all spheres of life in Botswana, not least the cattle industry. Problems in neighbouring Zimbabwe have meant that the Botswana cattle industry bore the brunt of recurrent FMD outbreaks across the border.  This, coupled with internal weaknesses in our abattoir system, has meant that exports to the lucrative European Union (EU) market are always interrupted, for months on end.  The result has been a slump in the sector as BMC and cattle farmers feel the pinch of FMD control measures and loss of a high-income market.  However, out of the gloom, BVI comes with the good news that Botswana is now an exporter of FMD medicine, turning adversity into a blessing. For it is possible that without the Zimbabwe factor, BVI could not have been so keen to develop the medicines that are now being sold to other countries.  Most certainly, our facilities would not have been sufficiently developed to produce for the export market.

Because Botswana first sold FMD medicine to other countries in 2000, the expectation is that we should have made millions in export earnings from this commodity by now.  The recent development should therefore be exploited to look for other markets and make FMD exports a major foreign exchange earner.  The lead provided by BVI should be an example to other research organisations like BOTEC, RIPCO and the University of Botswana.

It would be a very good idea for these organisations to develop innovative products for both the local and foreign markets.  It would help to diversify our economy from over-reliance on a few sectors.  Botswana is on a par with the Asian Tigers as one of the few developmental states in the world.  Like the Tigers, Botswana can reap rich in export earnings from knowledge-based industries. For example, we are the world's leading diamond producer by value, and we need to find ways of exploiting this by perhaps starting an international training facility in the area.

Botswana has already excelled in certain areas of research, as exemplified by the recent appointment of the National Food Research and Technology Centre (NFTRC) to be the research centre for the southern Africa region, on issues of food and nutrition. A decade ago, the Motse wa Badiri in Otse produced solar-powered hearing aids that attracted the attention of the world.  Unfortunately, the school was unable to cope with the high demand for the product. We hope BVI will not suffer the same fate.

Otherwise, we hail BVI and its partners for the efforts made in ensuring that we export FMD medicines to countries that are perhaps richer and technologically more advanced than us.

                        Today's thought

         'There is no education like adversity.'

             - Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister                             (1874-1880)