Thabiso Titus Paul
Botswana cannot build a private-sector-led economy, promote ease of doing business and encourage innovation if public and private institutions approach entrepreneurship only through the narrow language of compliance. Compliance is important. Laws matter. Procurement rules, intellectual property rights, contracts and governance frameworks exist for a reason. But a country that wants to unlock innovation must also cultivate goodwill.
Goodwill is not charity. It is not a donation. It is not a once-off corporate social responsibility activity arranged for publicity. Goodwill, in the context of entrepreneurship development, is the deliberate decision by institutions to use their power, platforms and policy space to enable smaller innovators to grow.
The numbers already show why this discussion should not be treated as sentimental pleading from artists and small businesses. In 2025, Minister of Sport and Arts Jacob Kelebeng was reported as telling Parliament that the cultural and creative industries contribute about 3.1 per cent to GDP and employ 6.2 per cent of the workforce. A broader study on copyright industries in Botswana estimated their contribution at 5.46 per cent of GDP, about P9.3 billion in value added and 18,407 jobs. Under NDP 12, the sport and creative industries sector is also expected to grow jobs from 8,300 to 33,550 by 2030, while non-government sector financing is targeted to rise from 0.4 per cent to 15 per cent. These figures make one point clear: the creative economy is not a side activity. It is an emerging economic sector that needs deliberate public and private sector support.
This is especially important in the creative economy, where many enterprises are young in two ways: young by the age of their founders, but also young by size, capital and institutional maturity. These enterprises may not always have the legal departments, compliance history, networks or balance sheets of established companies. But they often carry something equally important: original ideas, cultural insight, community trust, intellectual property and the courage to build new markets.
The challenge is that institutions sometimes use legal technicalities to avoid collaboration where goodwill could have built an ecosystem. A public body may say a small creative enterprise is too young to qualify. A corporate may say an idea is not protected enough to deserve recognition. A procurement system may insist on requirements that favour established players while excluding the very innovators policy claims to support. A company may see a concept, appreciate its value, then reproduce something similar without engaging the originator because the law does not clearly prevent it.
That may be legally convenient, but it is economically short-sighted.
Many entrepreneurs know this experience too well. You approach an institution with an idea when it is still unfamiliar, only to see the same space taken seriously later when it is repackaged by someone with more power, more budget and more access. The issue is not always that the law has been broken. Sometimes the deeper problem is that the spirit of enterprise development has been ignored.
If Botswana is serious about citizen economic inclusion, then the question should not always be, “What is the minimum the law requires from us?” The better question is, “How do we use the law, policy and institutional discretion to create space for local innovators?”
This is where intellectual property must be understood beyond legal registration. IP is not only a courtroom issue. At its heart, it is a recognition that ideas, designs, brands, stories, creative formats, knowledge systems and original concepts carry economic value. The protection of IP is not merely about stopping theft. It is about creating confidence that innovation will be rewarded.
Without that confidence, young entrepreneurs become careful in the wrong way. They stop sharing ideas. They avoid collaboration. They fear pitching to powerful institutions. They hesitate to test concepts publicly. They begin to believe that the market rewards those who copy with money more than those who create with sacrifice. That is dangerous for a country trying to build a knowledge-based economy.
Botswana must therefore develop an IP culture, not only an IP legal system. An IP culture means institutions respect origin even where technical ownership may be difficult to prove. It means corporates understand that a local concept does not become free simply because it is not perfectly protected. It means public bodies recognise that innovation often starts informally before it becomes institutionally polished. It means development partners, sponsors and procuring entities ask who created the idea, who built the market and who should be included in the value chain.
This requires a shift from CSR to ecosystem responsibility. CSR often treats SMEs and creatives as beneficiaries. Ecosystem responsibility treats them as partners. CSR may donate to an event, but ecosystem responsibility asks whether that event platform can become a sustainable enterprise. CSR may sponsor a youth activity, but ecosystem responsibility asks whether young innovators can be licensed, procured, mentored, paid and integrated into supply chains.
The same thinking applies to government. If public policy speaks of private-sector-led growth, then public institutions must become enablers of enterprise, not only enforcers of procedure. Ease of doing business should not only mean faster registration or fewer forms. It should also mean easier access to opportunity, fairer treatment of SMEs, simpler entry into value chains, and a willingness to accommodate innovation that may not fit neatly into old administrative boxes.
This does not mean lowering standards. It means designing pathways. If a creative SME is too small for a major contract, can the project be structured in phases? If compliance is incomplete, can there be support to help the business qualify? If a concept has public value, can the originator be engaged through licensing, piloting, partnership or limited procurement? If an idea has already been proven by a young enterprise, can institutions avoid reinventing it in ways that exclude the pioneer?
The law should be a bridge, not a wall. Policy should be an instrument of development, not a hiding place for institutional laziness.
There will always be cases where institutions are technically correct but developmentally wrong. A country serious about transformation must be brave enough to recognise that difference. It must ask whether its systems are helping innovators enter the economy or whether they are protecting the comfort of those already inside it.
Botswana’s future economy will depend on ideas. It will depend on local content, indigenous knowledge, digital creativity, educational products, cultural experiences, design, storytelling, technology and innovation. But these sectors will not grow if young entrepreneurs feel that their ideas are only safe until they become valuable.
In a small economy like ours, we cannot afford to waste pioneers.
Goodwill is therefore not a favour to SMEs. It is an economic necessity.
Public and private institutions must begin to use every lawful space available to collaborate with creative enterprises, accommodate them in value chains and protect the spirit of innovation. Not because the law always forces them to, but because national development requires it.
A private-sector-led economy cannot be built by excluding the smallest builders of value. It must be built by recognising them, strengthening them and allowing them to grow with the ideas they brought into the world.
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, cultural innovation and inclusive economic policy in Botswana.
