Online Reporter
ZIMBABWE and Botswana share a long border and have economies that match each other, so they need stronger and practical relations as they continue their joint economic development.
While relations between the two countries have generally been good since Zimbabwe’s independence, there have been some undulations and both countries have needed to develop economically so that effective trade and cross-border business became desirable and practically possible.
The common rise in development has now gone to levels where a lot more can be expected, and the Bi-National Commission of the two countries has hammered out a new series of agreements as was seen this week when President Advocate Duma Gideon Boko and President Mnangagwa jointly presided over the 5th commission meetings.
The 10 agreements cover, on one side, enhanced police cooperation to combat livestock theft and other cross-border crime, including transfer of sentenced persons to prisons in their own country, plus better defence cooperation and training and significant upgrades to border posts, with movement now expected on passport-free travel to be implemented in stages.
On the business side, barriers to cooperation are being removed to start turning the generally good political relations into a more dynamic economic partnership.
The tourism sectors have probably led the way here, with some very practical cooperation between operators in Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana in the Victoria Falls-Chobe area showing what is possible when everyone stands to benefit.
There is obviously more opportunity for better agricultural and agro-processing cooperation and far more trade in this area.
Zimbabwe might produce a wider range of agricultural commodities, but Botswana has built up a sophisticated livestock industry that brings in everyone from the farmer with a small herd to the exporters of high grade beef.
It is fairly easy to see how livestock cooperation and disease control can and must be enhanced, especially now that Zimbabwe has also started manufacturing some animal vaccines so that, between the two countries, there is already a reasonable range.
Practical steps to eliminate livestock disease are needed and these include measures to prevent cattle straying across the border in either direction, or being smuggled across the border by those seeking grazing or more lucrative markets.
The practical agreements signed off this week take all this into account.
At the same time Botswana, being a more arid country, has been concentrating on research into traditional grains, finding varieties that have high productivity and are good to eat, and taste better.
Industrial cooperation between businesses on both sides of the border is likely to be led by agro-processors as complementary markets already exist and can be fed by better trade.
Communications are vital in modern business, and Botswana’s 21st century expansion of its transport system, especially the road across the north of the country that gives Zimbabwe easy access to Namibian markets and ports, has shown how a lot more can be done.
The Second Republic bought into the agreement between Botswana and Zambia to build the new bridge connecting these two countries, and incidentally Zimbabwe, at Kazangula, showing a willingness to engage in practical cooperation.
At some stage the long-projected east-west railway across Botswana needs to be built so that the Namibian ports are accessible to both countries.
But the most important result of the Bi-National Commission meeting, and indeed President Boko’s entire State visit to Zimbabwe, is the recognition that the two countries can and should do a lot more business with each other, with the Governments basically making sure that this is possible, that artificial barriers are removed.
That is why the 10 agreements divide into two groups: inter-Government cooperation in practical border services and security on one side, and on the other side the willingness to smooth the way for the productive sectors to get stuck in and work out how investment, trade and markets can be enhanced.
The commission’s agreements were not pie-in-the-sky declarations of intent, but rather laying down practical steps that would actually work on the ground, and that is important.
Economies grow because practical business people drive them, with Governments smoothing away rough edges.
