Thabiso Titus Paul
For too long, Government has spoken to youth about empowerment in the language of funding, training, and encouragement, while leaving untouched the systems that continue to shut young people out of real economic participation. Young people are constantly told to innovate, register businesses, attend workshops, and pursue entrepreneurship. But the harder question remains unanswered: once youth create products and services, who is prepared to buy from them?
The recently presented Revised National Youth Policy 2026–2036 is important because it finally begins to acknowledge the real nature of the problem. The policy recognises that many young people remain excluded from meaningful economic participation despite being more educated and more globally connected than previous generations. It points to systemic misalignment, red tape, and structural exclusion from existing opportunities. It even acknowledges the young entrepreneur whose ideas fail to scale not only because of limited capital, but because enabling systems are still not working in their favour.
The acknowledgement by government is encouraging. It confirms what many young people have long known through lived experience: the youth challenge in Botswana is not only about unemployment or lack of effort. It is also about whether Government is prepared to reform the systems that determine access to markets, procurement, visibility, and commercial opportunity.
The first issue is market access.
Across Botswana, young people are building products and services in education, agriculture, communication, fashion, technology, media, and the creative economy. Yet many youth enterprises do not grow beyond the early stage. Not because they lack ideas, but because they cannot break into the market. They cannot easily access institutional buyers, distribution channels, retail opportunities, or long-term supply chains. Youth are encouraged to produce, but not meaningfully supported to sell.
The new youth policy is clear that the limiting factor to youth economic advancement is not only the absence of opportunities, but also structural exclusion from existing opportunities. It promises co-working and innovation spaces, stronger access to start-up infrastructure and digital resources, more inclusive financing, and support for youth-owned businesses to become globally competitive and export-ready. It also recognises the creative sector as a serious economic driver and promises support for commercialisation, digital platform monetisation, market linkages, and intellectual property protection.
This is welcome, but recognition alone is not enough. Government must move beyond preparing youth to participate in the economy and start making sure the economy is structured to receive them.
The second issue is procurement.
Procurement is not a minor administrative matter. It is one of the most powerful tools Government has to shape the economy. Procurement decides who gets contracts, who gets cash flow, who builds a track record, and who survives long enough to scale. When procurement systems are rigid, bureaucratic, and tilted toward established suppliers, they become one of the most effective ways of excluding youth while still pretending to support them.
Many young people know this reality too well. A tender is issued or quotations are requested, yet the same familiar suppliers continue to dominate. Youth-owned businesses are told to compete, but the terms of competition are often designed around years of prior experience, large balance sheets, and administrative histories that only older firms already possess. The process may look open on paper, but in practice, it protects incumbency.
This is why the procurement proposals in the new youth policy deserve serious attention. The policy proposes increasing the government procurement quota from 20% to 40%, while also calling for structured procurement training so that youth can benefit meaningfully from that quota. That should not remain an attractive line in a policy speech. It should become one of the central tests of whether Government is serious about youth empowerment.
Government must now go further.
It must publish transparent data showing which ministries, councils, parastatals, and public institutions are procuring from youth-owned businesses and which are not. It must create room for pilot procurement so that youth innovators are not forced into oversized and inflexible systems before they have had a chance to prove themselves. It must break suitable contracts into smaller lots so that young enterprises are not excluded simply because the packages are too large. It must also ensure faster payment cycles for youth suppliers, because delayed payments destroy small businesses much faster than they hurt established ones.
The private sector must also be challenged, but Government must lead. If the State cannot deliberately open its own market to youth, it cannot credibly expect the private sector to do better.
The policy becomes even more significant because it proposes a Youth Development Act, a National Youth Development Commission, and a Youth Development Scorecard. These matter because youth empowerment should not depend on goodwill, speeches, or changing political moods. It should be anchored in law, institutions, measurable reporting, and accountability.
The message from youth to Government should now be direct: youth do not only need encouragement, funding, or rhetoric. Youth need markets. Youth need buyers. Youth need systems that create first opportunities instead of preserving old supplier comfort zones.
Until Government fixes market access and procurement, the language of empowerment will continue to collide with the reality of exclusion.
Thabiso Titus Paul is a Youth Sector Chairperson at Business Botswana and creative entrepreneur. He is the founder of Motswedi Game and passionate about youth empowerment, innovation, enterprise development, and inclusive economic policy in Botswana.
