17 Dec 2024

President Advocate Duma Boko and his government’s placement of human rights at the epicentre of the nation’s development trajectory could be an exemplar of good governance and constructive leadership in the continent.

Ms Ahunna Eziakonwa- Onochie, the United Nations (UN) Assistant Secretary General, and UN Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Director for Africa, articulated this during a courtesy call on President Boko at the Office of the President on Tuesday.

Ms Eziakonwa-Onochie said the UNDP, the lead agency on international development of the UN, which oversees the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), is enthusiastic at the prospect of working with a Botswana government that is focused on human rights.

“We are beyond excited to see a leader who sees human rights in the centrality of development, at the heart of leaders. The neglect of human rights is what has led to the challenges the continent faces, it is at the core of inequality and jobless growth. President Boko, your human rights approach to development could be a game changer for Africa,” Ms Eziakowa- Onochie remarked.

She said being human rights focused would entail leaders looking beyond gross domestic product (GDP) national economic indices and being laser focused on the condition of people’s lives, in working towards ensuring human development and a decent standard of living for all.

Ms Eziakonwa- Onochie said while in the past UNDP programmes had focused on the least developed countries in Africa, they had started to pay greater attention to middle income countries like Botswana, whose continued success could become a model to be emulated by the continent.

In that regard, as a follow up to the UNDP Country Programme of 2017-21, whose priority areas included HIV and other diseases, governance and capacity development, gender equality, youth empowerment, economic diversification, poverty eradication as well as sustainable climate, a new report was being planned for early next year.

After an 18-month preparation, the national report would assist the government of Botswana in identifying national challenges and augment its development planning initiatives, Ms Eziakonwa- Onochie said.

She also revealed that they had on Monday launched the state-of-the-art University Innovation Pod (UNIPOD) at the University of Botswana with a virtual technology transfer office also scheduled for the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST).

The UNIPOD initiative, due to be located at UB with a satellite centre being planned for BIUST, is designed to nurture youth innovation and entrepreneurship through availing space for students, researchers, the public, and industry partners to develop and test their viable business ideas.

President Boko said he was pleased to be hosting the UNDP, an institution he represented in 2000 in Bamako, Mali, at a summit where the need to locate human rights at the centre of the development process was agreed upon.

He said that it had been unfortunate that in the years since, such ideals did not find expression in the policy formulations of governments across the continent, but he pledged that his government would work on ensuring these objectives were brought to fruition.

Adv. Boko thanked the UNDP for their partnership and said he hoped they would be of assistance in demonstrable ways to his government’s development initiatives.

While acknowledging the complexities of governance, he said in their endeavour to ensure they meet their lofty ideals of ensuring a better life for all, government would put in great effort, citing the Irish existentialist writer, Mr Samuel Beckett’s famous quote, that they would ‘try, fail…try again, fail better.’ ENDS