This was revealed by the Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture, Tumiso Rakgare when updating Parliament on the status of the National Arts Council of Botswana (NACB) recently. The NACB was launched in May 2023 as part of government’s initiative to transform the local creative and cultural space.
Rakgare said the NACB is working with other Arts Councils to collaborate and partner with each other for the socio-economic wellbeing of artists in these countries. He said following the meeting in Zambia last year, the Arts Councils are working on a concept that would see this festival held on a rotational basis.
“This Arts Festival will be held at the confluence of the Zambezi River, where the countries of Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and Zambia share a waterbody/border. The initial proposal to hold a four-nation festival had been conceived during a visit by the National Arts Council of Botswana to Zambia.
This festival will celebrate and preserve the four nation’s shared arts and cultural heritage,” Rakgare said. “It would be an opportunity to exhibit the potential that the creative economies of the four countries had and promote tourism due to the proximity and the various synergies. Over and above, we have had outline engagements with South Africa’s, Singapore’s and Canada’s Arts Councils in the last quarter of 2023. We plan to engage more with them to explore positive outcomes for our artists in the coming financial year,” he added.
The council also recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the National Arts Council of South Africa (NACSA) to strengthen the creative and cultural sectors in both countries. The MoU will see both countries working together to develop arts and culture practitioners with the aim of preserving indigenous and cultural heritage.
The objective of the MoU is to promote and facilitate Cultural and Creative Exchange Programmes, Heritage Preservation, Arts Education Partnerships and Residencies, Institutional Exchanges, Internship and Training Programmes and Research and Development Projects.
