Dubai Expo 2020 and the question of ROI
As the participation of Botswana draws to a close at the Dubai Expo 2020, questions around whether the participation of the country was (a) necessary and (b) valuable, have occupied public debate over the past week.
These questions are justified considering the current fiscal situation of the country where budgets are tight and rationalisation of expenditure has been touted heavily in the past two years. It has been a cry by Batswana for the past few years that we need increased accountability of public funds’ expenditure. Accountability that speaks to expenditure that is motivated by clear targets and transparent reviews after we have closed projects or investments. It is with this backdrop that a debate for accounting for our participation at the Dubai Expo 2020 is relevant.
I had the pleasure of being invited to participate in activities between March 8 and 14, as a moderator in Abu Dhabi and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Outside of the Dubai Expo 2020, three conferences were held during this period: one focusing on agribusiness, one focusing on mining (both in Abu Dhabi) and the last being the Botswana Investment and Trade Conference held in Dubai on March 14 headlined by President Mokgweetsi Masisi.
These conferences also included scheduled meetings by different stakeholders and entities in Botswana like Special Economic Zones Authority, National Development Bank, Botswana Stock Exchange, Botswana Development Corporation amongst others. Site visits and engagements were also held with prospective investors at their economic zones, development funding institutions and other places.
So while most people in Botswana might have just seen the cultural celebrations, there was an all-out assault on UAE businesses in the background away from cameras. And the above is by no means exhaustive because I can only speak to what I saw since I was not involved in strategy meetings etc. (Interestingly, my participation in the event has seen me being accused of being a BDP sycophant whose opinions going forth will only be me singing for my supper. It is a little disappointing that our opinions and analysis on local issues have become so binary in the last few years. All or nothing. With us or against us. Everything there is bad and here it’s good. No nuance. Something that is letting our discourse and debates down. Anyway, I digress)
So let’s go back to the first question. Was it necessary to participate in the Dubai Expo 2020? Consider that the expo had 182 countries participating with an estimated 60 million visitors expected over the six months. Now considering that the expo was really a tourist attraction, with one of our key industries being tourism, and the demographic of the tourist being the type we want to attract to Botswana, the expo was a great opportunity. You also had companies from all these countries congregate in the same venue all looking for potential partners and new markets to enter into.
The UAE itself also provided partnership and networking opportunities in terms of potential trade with Botswana with regards to tourism, sale of diamonds and mining, sale of agricultural goods like meat and leather goods and possible industrial expansions of manufacturing companies looking to create a hub for African operations. So on this first question, I think it is a resounding, “Yes”. Botswana did have to participate because opportunities like this happen once every five years.
The second trickier question is: will the participation prove to be valuable? That question then raises a few others: How much was spent? How was it funded? (It is my understanding that a substantial amount of participation was covered by the host country as part of expo commitments to smaller countries and a lot of sponsors also came on board. Every event I attended seemed to have a sponsor but I obviously wouldn’t know details)
What were the targets?
How are they measured etc? What I do think is important to have as a perspective is that this was essentially the marketing/advertising portion of a longer sales process. So while we all want to see tangible results like increased foreign direct investment leading to more jobs and growth in the country, we cannot judge the Dubai Expo participation against these metrics only since the sales process includes many more things which can derail the good work done at the expo. For example, if you have a radio advert, that might increase interest in your product, but if clients call and the person in the shop doesn’t answer, then sales will not happen and it would be false to then conclude that the radio advert did not do its job. This is the case with the expo.
Whatever interest has been generated, whether by tourists wanting to come to Botswana or business people wanting to set up, other things may derail their intentions (for example; how does mandatory vaccination at the port of entry affect the effort to lure tourists? How does slow business registration, licensing, availing of land and a frustrating work and residence permit process affect the ability for investors to realise their investments in Botswana?)
We have all heard the rumour of Aliko Dangote being denied a work permit for “security reasons” when he wanted to come to Botswana. So in judging the Dubai Expo, we need to make sure we are using the relevant metrics (possibly around interest at the foreign mission in Kuwait (services UAE), interest seen by BITC and other stakeholders) because the adverts and interest could be generated but sabotaged by one of the many processes at Companies and Intellectual Property Authority, Immigration, Lands, Directorate of Intelligence and Security etc.
In conclusion, having been part of the delegation in UAE, I have said in other arenas that I was surprised by the amount of interest and feedback expressed by the few people I interacted with. There seemed to be a genuine enthusiasm about Botswana and its potential. Now we need to ensure we capitalise on this by streamlining our processes and make sure that what we promise on the ease of doing business, is what the investors will experience on the ground when they come here.
*Mphoeng is a director at MP Consultants, a local citizen-owned corporate finance, economics and business consultancy. Previously, he worked for the University of Botswana as a Lecturer in Accounting and Finance, Botswana Insurance Fund Management (BIFM), Standard Chartered Bank and Bank of Botswana