Description
The European Union funds Botswana’s Private Sector Development Programme (PSDP) which is implemented by the local office of the Center for the Development of Enterprise (CDE). The PSDP seeks to support the Government’s policy of pursuing economic diversification, thus helping reduce Botswana’s dependence on the mining sector while promoting the development of local SMEs. The CDE has requested ITC’s technical support in identifying strategic plans of action to foster the development of three pre-determined sectors, namely horticulture, beef and tourism. In addition, they have requested ITC to produce a small project plan for the improvement of locally available trade information services. The three plans of action currently under development identify concrete project ideas for implementation both by the PSDP and other development partners. As per the Government’s and the PSDP’s brief, the formulation of these plans of action broadly follows ITC’s methodology for sector trade strategy design. The resulting projects are expected to support approximately one hundred SMEs active in three value chains. The expected projects will also benefit trade support organizations such as the national TPO (the Botswana Trade and Investment Centre), the Botswana Tourism Organization, as well as the sector organizations dealing with tourism, horticulture, and beef.