03 Mar 2025

The Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources’ (BUAN) Incu-Hive programme is a commitment by the institution to impart critical hands on skills to enable young people to run successful businesses.

It is a three-year entrepreneurship programme that equips graduates with business skills to start their own businesses and it is in aligned to the government’s development goal.

Youth led businesses have the potential to drive economic growth and promote vibrant communities, Minister of Youth and Gender Affairs, Ms Lesego Chombo said during BUAN’s Farmers Market Day in Gaborone on Sunday that saw 17 incubates graduating from the programme.

Minister Chombo stated that BUAN had a long standing tradition of incubating its graduates, an initiative that equipped young people with the experience they needed to fight unemployment challenges. She said in future, Incu-Hive would benefit young people across the country who were not BUAN graduates.

Minister Chombo encouraged beneficiaries to apply the skills and experience gained from the programme in their future endeavors.

“Information and knowledge is useless if it is not applied for the betterment of your businesses, for the betterment of your lives and for the betterment of Botswana,” Minister Chombo said an encouraged them to form partnerships.

“I appeal to all land owners, all stakeholders who are here today and those watching through various media outlets that, if you have land that you are currently not utilising, or not fully utilising or even utilising but there is room for you to avail space to our graduates for their business operation, I urge you to do so,” she said.

She also said together they could create a network of opportunities that could benefit Botswana and their communities.

BUAN vice chancellor, Professor Ketlhatlogile Mosepele said the graduation signified BUAN’s intention to reconfigure the TVET space in Botswana because through them, the university was planting seeds where Botswana would become food and nutrition secure.

He said government was making an investment through which the agriculture and natural resources centres would become key drivers of social economic growth.

Africa is faced with natural resources depletion, climate change, population growth, unemployment and economic stagnation, Prof. Mosepele said and added that such was heightened by increased food insecurity, with approximately 160 million Africans faced with acute food shortage.

Moreover, Prof Mosepele said Africa was characterised by youth bulge where the cumulative labour force was expected to grow to approximately 70 million between 2030 and 2050 and therefore noted that the continent was faced with a challenge to create employment for the youth within that time frame.

That, he said that was the motivation for BUAN, to mitigate youth unemployment by coming up with initiatives to address the problem, Prof. Mosepele further said, youth unemployment had gender dimension as three out of five not in education, training, employment in Sub Saharan Africa were young women.

Gender disparity increased their vulnerability and is a cause for concern, Prof. Mosepele said. Most importantly, he said that suggested that most young women were prone to economic disempowerment which invariably enhanced their vulnerability to Gender Based Violence.

He also said while 17, five of whom were young women and 12 young men were graduating, there were currently 23 young women and nine young men incubates in the programmme, a development he said he believed could alleviate the GBV scourge. ENDS