06 Aug 2013

Coordinator of Poverty Eradication Programme in the Office of the President, Dr John Mothibi says holding workshops to impart knowledge and life skills to needy people is key to eradicating poverty.

He said if people did not have the basic knowledge on how to start projects to gain income, they would not be able to step out of poverty or to know what to do to sustain their lives and rise above poverty.

He said in an interview on the sidelines of the Poverty Eradication Workshop held in Damochujenaa that due to this factor, government found it fit to run poverty eradication workshops to give people living in poverty, basic knowledge needed to be skilled enough to start a project or business that would sustain their lives.

 He said government was striving to reduce the numbers of the needy to nothing by 2016 through the poverty eradication programme and workshops. He explained that during workshops, people were trained on how to start projects and run their businesses as well as handle their finances.

“Also, at workshops beneficiaries are motivated to become business people and reach their highest potential in the business world because generally poor people suffer from a mental mindset which makes them feel like they are inferior to other people in society or they are outcasts, thereby falling back and not taking a stand uplift their lives,” he said.

He said such workshops were meant to motivate them and show them that they had potential to realise their dreams and make a living through projects. Dr Mothibi stated that after poverty eradication workshops, they continued empowering beneficiaries imparting knowledge and skills by giving them technical skills to get started with their projects.

He said when the beneficiaries were already in business, government continued to equip them with more skills so that they could better improve their knowledge level and therefore perform better on their business projects. Dr Mothibi also stated that they had strategies in place to monitor beneficiaries’ project progress.

He said his organisation had come up with a holistic monitoring and evaluation system that would be word based or computerissed.  He said they had been developing it in house. “Currently the monitering strategies are still being done manually and will be automated in due time,” he said.

“We are keeping records of beneficiaries because it is critical to have a track record of beneficiaries which will help us understand if poverty eradication programme and workshops have an impact in society. So far the programme and workshops have contributed tremendously to reducing poverty in Botswana and empowering many people who lived under poverty,” he said.

 He said currently there were roughly 4 000 poverty eradication beneficiaries’ projects which are operating country wide and the number is still increasing. He noted that government is targeting to have eradicated abject poverty by 2016.

This objective is achievable however I believe that beyond 2016 we are going to face challenges in that poverty dynamics will change.

There will always be poverty and it may not be abject poverty but may be poverty due to income inequalities which too will need to be addressed.

Due to this factor I believe that it will be necessary to have poverty eradication workshops beyond 2016 to continue to empower those in need,” he said. ENDS