Gaborone — Botswana needs people who can take knowledge and convert it into enterprise, stronger institutions, better services and solutions to real problems.
Speaking at the Continental Reinsurance Holdings evening of appreciation in Gaborone on Monday, Vice President Ndaba Gaolathe said the connection between knowledge and application sat directly within the Botswana they were building.
"Our True North is a Botswana that is digitally enabled, export-driven, people-centred and economically diversified, where citizens enjoy opportunities, employment, empowerment and fulfillment. Such an economy cannot be constructed by policy documents alone. It requires people with the capability to create, adapt, compete and continue learning as technology, markets and professions change," he said.
Mr Gaolathe who is also Minister of Finance, said when an experienced professional taught someone younger, years of accumulated experience were given another life. He said when institutions shared knowledge, capability begun to multiply.
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Mr Gaolathe said the announcement of the Continental Reinsurance investment on education of young Batswana deserved recognition.
He also said the investment begun with literacy, extended into professional education and ultimately contributing to the kind of human capability on which Botswana's transformation depended.
"A society retains its capacity for renewal for as long as its people retain the appetite to learn. As Botswana approached sixty, our achievements deserve celebration, but independence also places a continuing responsibility upon us. Every generation must acquire the knowledge required for the conditions it inherits and have the courage to learn beyond them," he said.
Continental Reinsurance Group Managing Director, Mr Lawrence Nazare said the company become a net exporter of financial services from Botswana by making the country the home of the holding company.
Mr Nazare said Botswana quietly and stubbornly remained a place of order, good sense and obvious hope.
He said premium underwritten and managed in Botswana and the expertise generated meant they retain capital locally, strengthening the capital base as Botswana for Africa.
He also said the industry was not built on capital alone but needed people to grow it thereby getting the largest repository of insurance of any insurance company in the continent.
Mr Nazare said they were donating P200,000 in support of a literacy programme for young Batswana and a laptop to a literacy programme championed by Vice President, Mr Gaolathe.
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Non-Banking Financial Institutes Regulatory Authority (NBFIRA), Acting Chief Executive Officer, Ms Verily Molatedi said looking forward to Botswana's next 60 years, they were focused on building a financial sector that was not only stable and well-regulated but, one that could support investment, innovation, entrepreneurship and sustainable development of the economy.
Ms Molatedi said Continental Reinsurance was an important component of a strong insurance sector as it enabled insurers to manage and distribute risk, strengthen their capacity and respond more effectively to significant and emerging risks.
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