Environmental policy and administrative management

The aim of the project is to pilot capacity development through demonstration and hands-on training in integrated natural resources management (INRM) for biodiversity conservation and improved livelihoods. The target groups include the youth who are farmers of the future. The initial youth participants are those undergoing an eighteen months horticultural apprenticeship training under the Innovative Horticultural Entrepreneurial Apprenticeship Training for the youth in Molepolole (INHOE). The other project beneficiaries will be the agro pastoral community who are members of the Semarule dam group to which Thari Ya Banana (TYB) is a member. It is estimated that up to 120 households in the project site will directly benefit from the project. The project is also aimed at contributing to Botswana`s national strategies on youth development, diversification of agricultural base, enhance the Ntional Master Plan for Arable Agriculture and Dairy Production (NAMPAAD)`s efforts to involve the youth and women in commercialization of agriculture. The activities will be on the interactive capacity development in the high value INRM, employing agro forestry technologies that contribute to food, fiber, fuel, timber, medicines, income generation, on-farm biodiversity, combating land degradation. The candidate plant species that are indigenous to both Gakgatla and Gamolele are lengana (Artemisia afra), mosukudu (Lippia spp), sengaparile (Harpagophytum procumbens). The project will also introduce some high value Jatropha and Neem sysstems.

Botswana