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Thesis (MPA) --University of Limpopo, 2009 / The Mahalapye sub District Development Committee is the most significant organization in the sub district as it sets overall goals, direction and priorities with which all development initiatives within the district should conform to. The membership of the committee includes all heads of central and local government departments, government planners, heads of Parastatals, and representatives of Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs). Effective management of projects requires collective consciousness, effort and will and it is important that members of the sub District Development Committee work as a team to ensure that all projects are implemented within the set time frames and limited resources. The development challenges facing Mahalapye sub district are complex. These challenges are not peculiar to the sub district, but are also a challenge to other districts in Botswana. These challenges include the need to implement village infrastructure projects in a cost effective manner in that the projects are completed within the estimated budget and time schedule. The research findings are that indeed the problem of project cost and time overruns is a problem in Mahalapye sub District and that the problem is attributed to the way the projects are managed, in particular, by the sub District Development Committee. A number of recommendations have been provided to help overcome the problem

The Botswana National Literacy Programme (BNLP) was officially launched in 1981 as a major adult literacy initiative. Literacy was in this case defined as reading, writing and calculating. However, experience over the years of implementation showed that provision of the 3Rs is not enough but literacy needs to be made functional in order to be useful to the learners in their daily lives. Income generating projects were therefore introduced to the National literacy programme as a way of making literacy functional. It has been realized however that the BNLP supported income generating projects are failing or not doing well. The aim of this study was therefore to investigate the performance of income generating projects supported by BNLP in relation to projects meeting member' objectives, group dynamics, economic growth, members' health status, commitment to the projects, use of literacy skills in running the projects, conducting feasibility studies before embarking on income-generating projects, business management, availability of start up finance and follow up. Hypotheses of this study stated that the BNLP-supported income generating projects are failing because of projects not satisfying members' needs, group disputes among group members, lack of growth, ill health lack of members' commitment to the projects, inappropriate literacy curriculum, inadequate feasibility studies before starting the projects, business management, lack of finance and lack of follow up after training. The methodologies used for this study were participatory and survey research. Qualitative strategies were employed using focus group discussions, force field analysis, observations and questionnaires. Stratified random sampling, was employed to select the sampled population often operating and ten non-operating income-generating projects in the South East, Southern and Northern regions of Botswana. Purposive sampling was employed to select all twelve trainers of the income generating projects within the same regions. The results of this study were analysed using SPSS 11.5, and manual inspection. The results of this study supported this hypothesis to a great extent in that causes of failure of the projects were because the personal objectives of project members were not met, there was a problem of group disputes among members, ill health of some members was affecting their production, literacy skills learnt in literacy and income generating skills provided by BNLP were not adequate to be used in the running of the project and business skills are taught separately from the basic literacy skills of reading and writing and numeracy. Feasibility studies were not conducted before embarking on income generating projects and there was mismanagement of the projects. Inadequate follow up was also seen to be one of the contributory factors to the failure of projects. Hypothesis of this study was also partially rejected in a sense that, the results showed that almost all the projects received some grants to start their projects and therefore start up finances were not a problem but rather a problem of shortage of funds for expansion, Lack of ensuring sustainability of projects was due to mismanagement of the funds by the office bearers and mostly LGLs. Recommendations of this study directed to income generating-project members included settling group disputes, conducting feasibility studies, embarking on relevant projects individually or as groups. Policy recommendations included support of individual and group projects, running a pilot project where appropriate literacy needs of the piloted projects will be provided, involvement of the participants in decision-making concerning their projects and curriculum. The policy recommendation included ensuring that funds are only given to viable projects and literacy curriculum is relevant to the running of income generating projects to ensure sustainability. Recommendations for further studies included BNLP conducting an in-depth study to establish the prospects and problems of group approach in income generating activities, investigate the level of skills that the BNLP supported income-generating projects and their trainers possess and their specific needs for skills development and lastly evaluate the training materials used in both literacy classes and income-generation training to get more insight on what is lacking, and how this could be improved. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

Micro and small businesses have become a contributor to both reduction of unemployment and to national development. The informal small scale clothing producers in Botswana have been supported by government through policies directed towards poverty alleviation and employment creation. Despite the government's efforts of availing financial assistance, technical expertise, promotional and marketing support, the informal small scale clothing producers do not seem to be utilising these for full benefit. Participation of the informal small scale clothing producers at Botswana International Trade Fair was expected to provide them with avenues for long term benefits through marketing their products and learning. The purpose of this study was to establish the impact of Botswana International Trade Fair on the informal small scale clothing producers. The informal small scale clothing producers have had assistance and access to promoting their products for a considerable time, with not much change in the market share and quantities of production. The challenges facing these informal small scale clothing producers has been to utilise BITF for competing with local and regional producers in providing quality products; to increase production for meeting the demands of the market; to increase profits, and expand businesses to reduce unemployment. Purposive sampling was used to select participating informal small scale clothing producers and council Home Economists while the· independent small scale exhibitors were conveniently sampled during the 2006 trade fair. Seventeen informal small scale clothing producers from the eastern part of Botswana were interviewed to establish impacts from participating at the trade fair. One producer who h-ad won most prizes at the trade fair was interviewed for a different perspective in production strategies employed. Fifteen council Home Economists, acting as liaison and change agents for the informal small scale clothing pmducers, also participated in the survey and focus group discussions. Two case studies were developed fmm in-depth interviews with independent small scale exhibitors to ascertain impact brought about by BITF on these producers. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used in collecting data. The results were analysed in terms of frequencies and chi-square relationships. Great similarities were found to exist between the three samples. The results revealed that there was adequate knowledge about BITF on the informal small scale clothing producers, as weil as with council Home Economists and the independent small scale exhibitors. The three groups understood the objectives of BITF to be mostly educational and followed by promotion. All the groups reported noticeable impact to be growth in the number of customers, increase in production, increase in assets, improvement in quality of products and addition of newly developed products. Perceptions of the three groups on the benefits from BITF matched what they experienced as result of participation at the trade fair. The producers on the other hand experienced a decline in the number of employees while the independent small scale exhibitors had an increase. For utmost benefit of BITF, the producers have to. strengthen their marketing strategies, during and outside the trade fair. There is need for the producers to take initiatives to secure their own stalls for participation during the trade fair as individuals or jointly with other producers. Producers could benefit more from using funding from government for promotion of products. Home Economists should support self representation by the producers so that they directly learn from participation and eventually wean off continued support from government. For monitoring and planning purposes, a national data base for micro and informal small scale clothing producers should be kept by the Department of Social Services. Benchmarking on involving micro and small scale businesses in training is essential, and establishment of local markets for continued contact with customers could expand producers' knowledge in production. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.