21 April 2008
For the next National Business Conference (NBC), the Botswana Confederation of Commerce, Industry and Manpower (BOCCIM) is taking the 4 Ds in President Ian Khama's inaugural road map speech further by adopting a theme under the second 'D' for Development.
BOCCIM President Modiri Mbaakanyi revealed on Friday during a Q and A session with the media that NBC 2007, which is scheduled for September 7 to 10, 2008 at the Tati River Lodge in Francistown, will focus on sustainable development.
"The country needs a new push to take it to the next level", Mbaakanyi said. During his inaugural speech as Botswana's fourth president, Khama said the second D, for Development, referred to improving the standard of living of Batswana.
He said under the second D, government needed to create an enabling environment for the private sector and to actively encourage it to become the driving force of the economy.
BOCCIM has been running the NBC since 1988. It was initially run as a forum for members of the business community to interact, but it has evolved into a constructive dialogue between government and the private sector and a platform for the exchange of ideas within the latter.
The NBC and the theme come at a time when Botswana and the SADC region are experiencing power shortages and searching for new sources of energy that are not harmful to the environment.
A consultant for the conference, Dr Keith Jefferis, who developed the theme, says the next NBC will discuss environmental sustainability, challenges facing private and public sectors, and investment, among other issues.
Jefferis, who is the Managing Director of Econsult Botswana, says as the economy grows, the country will need additional sources of power.
He argues that although the Mmamabule coal-fired power plant will help diversify the economy, "it will have an environmental impact".
Coal-fired power stations generate sulphur, which contributes to pollution. Jefferies, however, says Mmamabule will be clean.
"Mmamabule's design brief has been strict on environmental pollution," says the former deputy governor of the Bank of Botswana (BoB). "This project (together with Morupule B) will be clean."
Sponsors of the Mmamabule Project have adopted the Equator Principles (EP) of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), an arm of the World Bank.
The EP is a set of environmental and social benchmarks for managing environmental and social issues in development project finance globally. Once adopted by banks and other financial institutions, the Equator Principles commit the adoptees to refrain from financing projects that fail to follow the processes defined by the Principles.
The NBC takes place every two years and is a prominent forum that promotes constructive Public/Private dialogue on issues of national interest.
The theme for this year's NBC is "Setting the Agenda for Sustainable Economic Growth." Professor Joseph Stiglitz will be the keynote speaker of the conference.
Professor Stiglitz is a renowned economist currently teaching at Columbia Business School (Columbia University) in the US. He has held numerous high profile positions, including Senior Vice President and Chief Economist at the World Bank from 1997-2000.
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