High on Entrepreneurship

The most intriguing aspect of entrepreneurs is their ability to get high, to get high on energy, high on success, high on passion and a definite high on dedication. It is their ability to stand true to these defining principles that characterize the operations of succesfull entrepreneurs the World over. I envision a future Botswana that holds true to these values, that pushes her young to embrace the whirlwinds of an economically diverse Botswana. In order to get to this economic bliss, a lot needs to be done to ensure that young people are effectivelly integrated in the main stream economy. A variety of challenges face the youth central to them being a high unemployment rate which has often led to many a bored, restless and unresponsible young person. The need to ensure that young people create meaningfull employment opportunities for their peers and themselves is once again echoed in this submission. Mr. Lawrence Ookeditse submitted a candid account on how we can effectivelly move forth on the industrial front as a nation, he noted with passion the ability of the Zezuru tribe to manufactore and trade a variety of goods. This, he argues, is central to their entrepreneurship culture which Botswana can utilize to strengthen her industrial capacity while recognizing the very cultural institutions which characterize the Zezuru tradesmanship, their traditional schools. The training aand development of start up enterprises, particularly those run by young people has been found to be lacking. This is evidenced by the 70% of start up enterorises which fail within the first five years of their operation in Botswana. We need to strengthen our training capacity to ensure that young people are at par with their international competitors and peers, we can not have a situation where millions of taxpayers funds are splashed into young people only to have their enterprises collapsing after a couple of years. Through training and development as well as effective monitoring and evaluation mechanisms, we can ensure that the investments made in young people deliver the expected results and contribute to the overall economic development of the country. Initiaitves such as the Youth Development Fund, the Young Farmers Fund and many others established to assist young people with a quest for entrepreneurship need to be constantly audited to ensure that they are meeting set objectives. Youth entrepreneurship seems to be the only viable solution to widespread unemployment in Botswana, economic diversification as well as self sustinance in some sectors of the economy such as food production. We can only hope, pray and dream of innovation driven Botswana where innovative young people understand the fact that they are today's leaders.