Awareness-Raising and training workshop in Botswana

The Government of Botswana (GoB), in cooperation with UNEP and UNDP, is implementing a Poverty and Environment Initiative (PEI). The PEI programme seeks to assist Botswana in integrating poverty-environment linkages and concerns into development planning and management with a view to maximising Botswana’s long term benefits from environmental resources.

PEI Botswana aims to support the integration and harmonisation of sustainable renewable natural resource management in national, sector and district level policy planning and budgetary processes. In particular it aims to develop awareness and promote action to tackle key poverty - environment issues and their socio-economic impacts in order to support delivery of the GoB's Vision 2016 and the National Development Plan (NDP10) which, as over-arching goals, intend to support economic growth and diversification and eradicate poverty. PEI Botswana is led by the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment Wildlife and Tourism (MEWT). Other key partners include the Ministry of Agriculture, Office of the President and the Ministry of Minerals Energy and Water Resources.

An Institutional Analysis undertaken by PEI Botswana as part of the PEI design and inception phase identified a number of causes of environmental degradation including: low awareness and dialogue amongst key decision-makers, the media, civil society and private sector on the role of environmental management in contributing to growth and poverty reduction; responsibility for environment fragmented across many government departments; limited environmental mainstreaming across government; poverty dimensions of environmental management poorly understood; and limited awareness and planning for climate change across the breadth of government.

PEI is now supporting the government by providing in environmental mainstreaming. As part of this effort, an awareness-raising and training workshop on environmental mainstreaming and sustainable development was organized on 11-13 April in Gaborone, Botswana. 31 participants attended from various ministries and the private sector together with guests from Malawi, Zimbabwe and international organizations. The aim was to:

1. Raise awareness, appreciation and understanding of environmental mainstreaming and sustainable development

2. Provide an overview of environmental mainstreaming tools and methodologies to support development planning, environmental management, and sustainable development, and explore opportunities for their application in Botswana

3. Define further training and capacity building needs for environmental, poverty-environment and SD mainstreaming

4. Identify changes that may be needed to the Roadmap for the National Strategy for Sustainable Development including steps, actions and time schedule, and develop actions for the effective participation in the Rio+20 Summit preparations and negotiations.

Read a report on the workshop

Access powerpoint presentations made at the meeting