Abstract

The Botswana Technology Centre (BTC) was established to assist the people of Botswana in choosing technological solutions to daily problems, to evaluate and adapt foreign technology, and to pursue the government's key policy objectives of rural development and employment creation by assisting in technology choice. Some of its functions are to disseminate technical information to policymakers, organizations and individuals, and to respond to technical enquiries. The Botswana Technical Information Service (BTIS) has a technical library, operates a technical enquiry service, produces technical bulletins and papers, and initiated radio-programs and audiovisual dissemination of information. This project reinforces the capacity of BTIS by recruiting and training local staff, developing a full audiovisual technology dissemination program, and evaluating the various technology dissemination techniques at the rural level.

Post-Project Summary

This project enabled the Botswana Technology Centre (BTC) to produce audiovisual packages in radio and photography. Progress was made in recruiting and training local personnel to fill project positions, including a Botswanan with a MSc who was employed as Information Coordinator. Two tape/slide presentations were made on BTC; and monthly, 30-minute radio programs on technology were aired in the Setswana language, with transcripts made available to the listening audience. While BTC did not manage to produce most of the slide shows and videos originally planned, it developed a valuable resource of slide collections and relevant video programs prepared by other organizations. Technical inquiries did not increase from the level of five inquiries per week that BTC received prior to project approval. The radio program ran regularly, however, with good feedback from listeners. During the course of the project, BTC published two issues of a quarterly joint newsletter, in the form of newspaper supplements, for public dissemination of technical information.

Recipient Institution(s)