eKgotla

A happy birthday to President Festus Mogae. Puulllaaaa!! 🇧🇼

Today we celebrate and honor the legacy of the founding President of Botswana, Sir Seretse Khama✊🏽

Wishing the people of the Republic of Botswana a wonderful Sir Seretse Khama Day🇧🇼

"Our Children Are Our Greates Treasure🪙. They Are Our Future✊🏾. Those Who Abuse Them Tear At The Fabric Of Our Society And Weaken Our Nation 🇧🇼. " - Nelson Mandela

E-Kgotla aligns its philosophy to provide an index of 6-to-8 on Arnstein's ladder of citizen participation, which is described as "real citizen participation" and "citizen control/power. Achievement of this level of citizen engagement is attainable and the E-Kgotla platform delivers this promise through five (5) key principles listed below. These work to propel citizens into active participants in governance process. E-Kgotla operates as a community mobilization platform, organizing community voices, knowledge, perceptions, and actions towards shared values.

The purpose of eKgotla platform is to bridge the gap within the traditional public participation processes. The concept is drawn from the Tswana traditional Kgotla, which is a medium of participation and engagement on matters of public and civic concern.
The International Budget Partnership cites Botswana to be a country that offers very little opportunity for public engagement in her decision-making processes, her rating of 15/100 with regard to public participation. Analog approaches like newspaper adverts and traditional Kgotla meetings are seemingly falling out of favor as they are not schedule-friendly, time-consuming, and prone to inexpert chairing & disturbances. Along with the advent of COVID-19, public engagement has been proving difficult largely to regulations that prohibit mass community gatherings. As such, the community participation process has to evolve and adapt.
e-Kgotla aims at digitizing & modernizing the public participation process, increasing the much-needed involvement in governance and public discourse by marginalized cohorts [women and youth].

Electronic services provide the fundamental interface for society’s increasing interaction with web-based economic, political, and educational institutions and are at the forefront of the delivery and collection of information that impacts diverse facets of society.

e-kgotla is an important forum for platform researching.It offers both private and public sector perspectives and explores new approaches in e-government and public participation