Rex Moyo:
Technology Transfer and SMME Promotion through the Village Skills Training Programme in Botswana

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Technology Transfer and SMME Promotion through the Village Skills Training Programme in Botswana

Rex Moyo

Background

The Village Skills Training Programme (VSTP) was introduced by the Rural Industries Innovation Centre (RIIC) in 1980 to impart technical and business managerial skills to rural artisans, aimed at enhancing the development of SMMEs in the rural areas. Over the past ten years the programme has attracted artisans from the marginalised sector of the urban population, neighbouring countries as well as those involved in the informal business sector in both the rural and urban areas. Apart from offering courses on site decentralised courses can also be arranged if there is sufficient demand (Catalogue of Goods and Services, Third Edition, 1997).

Operational objectives of this programme are as follows:

1. General objectives
   • To increase productivity and incomes in both agricultural and non- agricultural sectors through the provision of training and diffusion of appropriate technology.
   • To make rural areas and marginalised sectors of the urban population more self-sufficient in both products and services.

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2. Specific objectives
   • To upgrade through training the skills of traditional artisans with the intention of increasing productivity, product range, quality of products and incomes especially in the rural areas.
   • To assist ex-trainees of the programme to establish micro and small businesses.
   • To assist the programme's ex-trainees overcome their operational constraints.
   • To provide training to people from other organisations and countries.
   • To identify new areas of training.
   • To provide linkages between graduates and the needs of their local communities.

   Eligibility and admission criteria

   The training programme is designed to be entirely practical with little or no theory emphasised. Hence, one does not need to have gone through formal education to qualify for admission. As a support service to technical courses offered, each trainee is expected to undergo one and half hours of business management training per day for a specific period ranging from four to nine weeks depending on whether the course is a beginner’s or upgrading. However, there are special business management courses offered on request.

   Admission is through written applications or physically booking for a slot. All the courses are offered on a cost recovery basis.

   Philosophy behind SMME development through the VSTP

   The programme is based on the assumption that even though it may almost be a remote possibility for graduates to effectively compete with commercially mass produced goods and services on the small

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   and medium scale, it is however possible to succeed at the micro scale (Woto, 1989). This takes cognisance of the fact that micro enterprises of this nature require a minimal amount of working capital to go into production and they have very little or no overhead costs at all. It is also assumed that within this context they will utilise locally available raw materials, employ themselves and others.

   It is further worth mentioning that the VSTP courses are designed and structured in accordance with the national Madirelo Trade and Testing Centre. This has been deliberately done to enable ex-trainees who are unable to start small businesses to be absorbed into the national labour market and further upgrade their skills to qualify for the National Trade Test Certificates.

   Information dissemination and extension support

   In line with the RIIC regional extension outreach effort, Botswana has been divided into five regions. Each region has been assigned an officer to co-ordinate RIIC activities as well as providing a vital link between the local communities, governmental agencies and Non-governmental Organisations. Information on any new technological break-through is disseminated through this arrangement by addressing kgotla meetings among others, and soliciting new ideas through participatory rural appraisals etc. on technology development and service provision. In addition, the VSTP staff whose efforts are supplemented by the regional extension officers provide business and technical advisory services to established SMMEs and those wishing to start new businesses. This is done on a quarterly basis through regular follow up visits to VSTP graduates and other end users of RIIC developed technologies.

   This arrangement provides an effective means of indirectly providing services to VSTP target groups. Further to the above, the quest here is for RIIC to provide services by creating linkages between ex-trainees and the needs of the local communities through the organisation and

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   support of trainee associations by aggressive lobbying and marketing efforts.

   Programme achievements

   Since its inception, the VSTP has provided training to 2,556 people. A study conducted by SIAPEC Africa on the impact of VSTP training has shown that 65% of the graduates go into business. But due to lack of start up capital in some instances and inability to compete effectively in the market in other instances, many ex-trainees fail to venture into business and as such, training becomes an end in itself rather than a means to SMME development and employment creation.

   The following information as tabulated below, raises concern whether the SIAPEC observation may still be valid.
   
   

   Table 1: Number of graduates versus those in production
   
   

   Course	Number trained	Number in business	Variance
   Bakery	803	267	536
   Carpentry	346	15	331
   Blacksmith	202	20	182
   Fabric printing	128	47	81
   Knitting	2	0	2
   Leatherwork	184	6	178
   Tannery	271	8	263
   Sewing/Patchwork	379	47	532
   Business management	41	41	0
   Total	2 556	451	2 107

   As outlined in the above table, the numbers of graduates who are not in production exceed by far those in production. Operational problems such as inability to compete effectively in the market have contributed to some businesses having to close shop. On the other hand, not all graduates are able to go into production. Some have been absorbed

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   into the national labour market. However, due to resource constraints on the part of the Rural Industries Innovation Centre (RIIC), we have not been able to systematically make specific follow ups to establish the number of ex-trainees employed elsewhere. The envisaged VSTP evaluation study is expected to provide answers to some of these questions.

   Active businesses have created 239 employment positions, excluding the entrepreneurs themselves.

   Programme constraints

   As mentioned elsewhere in this paper, ex-trainees fail to go into business due to lack of working capital. Government initiated SMME development support schemes such as the Financial Assistance Policy (FAP), fail to produce their intended benefits for most VSTP graduates, as they are not able to raise the required personal contribution even when their business proposals have otherwise been approved to receive the grant.

   On the other hand they have difficulty in accessing credit from commercial financial sectors due primarily to lack of business credit history or a total absence of collateral.

   In response to these constraints, the RIIC has initiated a revolving fund credit programme in collaboration with NORAD to initially fund ex-trainees of the carpentry-training programme. It is eventually intended to cover graduates from other VSTP courses.

   The Rural Industries Innovation Centre also collaborates with other internationally renowned donor organisations such as the African Development Foundation to assist potential entrepreneurs to start their own businesses.

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   Conclusion

   In its overall objectives, the Rural Industries Innovation Centre views development as empowerment. Within this context, development is recognised as a process which in addition to freeing people from the catastrophes of poverty, unemployment and deprivation among others, is also a function of enabling people to control their own destinies through SMME development and employment creation. The empowerment element is primarily inherent in the organisation’s objectives of skills provision through the Technology Transfer and the Village Skills Training Programmes, as well as business and technical advisory services through the regional extension effort. Notwithstanding both programme constraints as earlier on outlined, the quest here is to create an entrepreneur with the relevant business acumen not only in providing a product or service to the community, but who is also able to make a living and operate the business on a sustainable basis. In this endeavour, we see a fundamental deviation from classical development practice of extending welfare services to the underprivileged sectors of the population.

   References

   Catalogue of Goods and Services, Third Edition, Rural Industries Innovation Centre, Kanye, Botswana 1997

   T. Woto, The Barefoot Approach in Perspective, University of Wales-Swansea, United Kingdom, 1989

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   Appendix 1: Course duration
   
   

   Course	Beginner’s	Upgrading	Total
   Bakery	4 weeks	4 weeks	8 weeks
   Carpentry	6 weeks	8 weeks	14 weeks
   Blacksmith	8 weeks	9 weeks	17 weeks
   Fabric printing	4 weeks	4 weeks	8 weeks
   Knitting	5 weeks	6 weeks	11 weeks
   Leatherwork	8 weeks	6 weeks	14 weeks
   Tannery	6 weeks	6 weeks	12 weeks
   Sewing/Patchwork	5 weeks	5 weeks	10 weeks
   Business management	4 weeks	4 weeks	8 weeks
   Total	50 weeks	52 weeks	102 weeks

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   © Friedrich Ebert Stiftung | technical support | net edition fes-library | Dezember 1999