26 Mar 2025

Parliament has on Tuesday voted in favour of the Ministry of Youth and Gender Affairs 2025/26 budget proposals of approximately P718 million, with over P707.6 million scheduled for recurrent expenditure and P10.5 million for the development budget.

Motivating the budget in Parliament, the Minister of Youth and Gender Affairs, Ms Lesego Chombo said it was critical that the restructuring of the old Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture, which resulted in her portfolio being more youth and gender focused, should be accompanied by resource allocation.

She said this would allow them to address the structural challenges they had noted, which includes the shortage of staff across their sectors, which she said was affecting her ministry function and service delivery.

Ms Chombo revealed that the Department of Youth Affairs (P414.6 million), ministry headquarters (P192 million) and the Department of Gender Affairs (P103.7 million) would receive the bulk of the recurrent budget, which covered administrative costs, including personal emoluments, office rentals, payment of services and utilities such as security, power and water bills.

She noted that P200 million in the budget provision would go towards the Youth Development Fund (YDF) programme, with an additional P154 million budgeted for the payment of allowances for Tirelo Sechaba participants.

The minister further stated that her ministry had been engaging with young people across the country to guide the National Youth Policy, whose guidelines and action plans were aimed at aligning with emerging local and international trends.

She said the initial draft had been crafted and the ministry was in the process of finalising the policy document in collaboration with stakeholders who are offering expert guidance.

“Youth unemployment remains one of our greatest challenges as a nation and requires a system wide multi-sectoral approach. The ministry is actively engaging with other sectors to identify jobs for youth as part of youth mainstreaming and to ensure that the voice of young people is heard,” Ms Chombo said.

The National Policy on Gender and Development as well as the National Strategy Towards Ending Gender Based Violence are both under review to align with current realities, Ms Chombo disclosed.

“The Ministry is in the process of procuring consultants to carry out the review process of these policy documents. The ministry is desirous of improving the legislative framework to better address the issue of Gender Based Violence by drafting a Gender Based Violence Act as well as a Gender Equality Act to close the existing gaps. These are to be drafted during the 2025-26 financial year,” Ms Chombo said.

The minister said the battle against GBV, women’s voluntary organisations, and annual women’s exposition votes would each get P5 million in the 2025/26 budget.

Additionally, the minister said Botswana had made significant progress towards promoting Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment.

“According to the Global Gender Gap Report of 2024, Botswana is positioned at 57 out of 146 countries. This places Botswana at position 11 in Sub Saharan Africa, marking a significant accomplishment towards inclusion,” she noted. ENDS