Policy hackathon unpacks challenges
As government reviews the country’s national investment strategy ( NIS), a policy hackathon was recently held to attract effective solutions and key points for the creation of innovative strategy drivers for investment.
Organised by the Ministry of Trade and Industry ( MTI) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme ( UNDP), the hackathon attracted work groups to examine and dismantle barriers to investment promotion, attraction and investor retention.
A hackathon is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 hours.
According to MTI, the aim of the hackathon was to harness the experience and perspective of core actors in Botswana’s investment and entrepreneurship ecosystem, specifically targeting the youth.
“Most importantly, it sought to harness their ( hackathon participants) collective intelligence in an intensive work session, hear their thoughts on effective solutions and key attraction points for Botswana and create innovative strategy drivers for investment in Botswana,” said MTI Permanent Secretary, Malebogo Morakaladi, commenting after the hackathon.
She said the hackathon allowed work groups to unpack hurdles on domestic and foreign investment promotion.
Morakaladi also pointed out that a common and key output from the work groups was that even though the content of the NIS was vital to growing the investment ecosystem in Botswana, there was a need to prioritise incentives for domestic investors to invest in indigenous businesses.
“The participants recommended that all chapters must be strategic, realistic, manageable, attainable and time- bound for easy monitoring and evaluation of the revised NIS,” said Morakaladi, adding that the feedback collected has been compiled into a report which the Ministry will consider for inclusion in the final revised NIS, to be presented to cabinet.
According to MTI, the NIS will build on the successes of the 2009- 2016 NIS cycle, leverage on the emerging opportunities as well as addressing the gaps identified, looking at the new challenges that the COVID- 19 Epidemic caused, and ensuring that both local and international investment is supported and promoted.