Gone are the days when business experts would convene and start apportioning blame on each other for failing to implement resolutions.
The National Business Conference (NBC) that kicks off today (Sunday) will see the private sector and government interrogate implementation challenges towards attaining economic development.
The biennial conference, which is held every two years, seeks to establish how Botswana can move to the next level of development and growth.
“There is no need of making the conference a finger pointing platform because both government and the private sector have a role to play,” said Dorcus Magkato Malesu, the Minister of Trade and Industry.
Malesu acknowledged that the government and the private sector are struggling at implementation level and added that now they want to pause.
She said that the challenges are not only at policy level but are also at technical level, like the economic diversification drive perspective, where quality, cost and delivery of goods and services is a challenge.
The NBC has, in the past, set resolutions after vigorous discussions between the public and private sector about what needs to be done to improve Botswana’s socio-economic environment but not succeed at implementing.
Malesu said the conference provides an opportunity to further review and improve systems and accelerate implementation.
The conference runs under the banner ‘Interrogating implementation, why is it a challenge?’
“During the conference we seek to interrogate economic development of the country and come up with resolutions that will benefit both government and private sector,” she said.
She said economic diversification strategy is facing implementation challenges because market size and product capacity is not aligned to the country ability to consume. Malesu also cited market access and competition as other factors. Government has emphasized economic diversification through a number of policies and strategies geared towards supporting development.
Possible reasons for implementing challenges vary from not having efficient evaluation methods in place, limited resources, bureaucracy and lack of ownership of policies from key relevant and priority stakeholders to a multitude of possible factors.
