Keywords

1 Introduction

This chapter summarises all the conclusions drawn in each of the 13 individual chapters to carve the way forward in lifelong learning and development. This final chapter of the book, the authors argue that lifelong learning is relevant for articulating the Human Rights based approach to poverty and poverty eradication through university engagement as part of the broad agenda of Education for sustainable development. The third mission of universities provides the infrastructure for universities to be relevant, effective and efficient in paying back, through serving communities, the price communities paid for the elites to be at a comparative advantage. Until the ivory tower gap is closed by universities particularly in Sub- Saharan Africa, the global social development programmes through lifelong learning remain an unfinished agenda.

The book is made up of 14 chapters compressed into 3 parts as follows:

2 Part One: Lifelong Learning

Part A of this book has chapters that focus on lifelong learning, policy development for poverty eradication and participation. The first part (Part A) has 5 chapters that focus on the social purpose of lifelong learning. The Introduction Chap. 1 on Lifelong Learning: Meaning and Scope has provided definitions of what counts as lifelong learning, meaning and scope using a variety of perspectives. Several conclusions can be drawn from this chapter:

Lifelong learning covers formal, informal and non-formal modes of delivery that all human beings go through from the cradle to the grave. Lifelong learning is also a very personal and individualistic experience that is never alike for any two or more people. Botswana lifelong learning policy context is premised on an education subsystem still lacks equality. Although literacy levels are very high (68–70 %) the San have not been able to be lifelong learners with skills that put them on the same platform with the rest of the ethnic groups in Botswana. Their marginalization and disadvantages in all fronts have put them in a position of helplessness, therefore making them worthy of a group to study. Key issues here are widening participation in education programmes across a lifespan, and measuring that education offered is of top quality and relevance to promote lifelong learning in a broad sense.

Within the Botswana context, two major aims of lifelong learning are to improve Batswana for better life and access to the corporate world and to develop educational and training programmes responsive to the needs of the ever-changing economy. The Economic Diversification Drive as espoused in the 2013 State of the Nations Address suggests that lifelong learning for poverty eradication cannot be overemphasized.

Specific objectives of lifelong learning are to promote community and human development, and to promote an environment that helps people to be able to cope with the challenges ad demands of change.

Lifelong learning takes place everywhere; therefore it cannot be straight jacketed to the confines of a classroom. A variety of delivery modes are in existence to promote lifelong learning globally.

In Botswana, the main ones are. a) Basic education and training: Examples include, but are not limited to Adult Basic education, Formal learning, Non Formal learning, Pre-primary learning, Primary learning, and Secondary learning and Out of school education.

  1. a.

    Continuing Education: Examples include, but are not limited to Continuing education and re-entry of the adult learners, learning by special needs groups, Vocational/technical education and training, and learning that takes place in Tertiary institutions.

  2. b.

    Extension workers’ education and training: Examples include, but are not limited to Extension education, Training of trainers for extension work, extra mural studies and Life skills training.

  3. c.

    Open and Distance education: Examples include Open and distance education, Leisure education, Community education Environmental education and tourism.

All the above modes of delivery promote lifelong learning. In all the above modes of delivery facilities that promote lifelong learning include libraries, ICT, partnerships and availability of initial funding to start businesses.

Chapter 2 of the book focuses on Lifelong learning, poverty and community engagement. Lifelong learning and its dimensions including other interventions are essential for people to make a transition from poverty to non- poverty in all fronts. There are different types of poverty and those that are emphasized here include poverty as income insufficiency, social deprivation and injustice. Poverty (income, capability, participatory and consequential) is usually typified in low indicators of good quality of life, gender inequality, and a cycle of transmission from one generation to another.

Some of the destitute poor are socialized to give up and fail to make an efforts to rid themselves of poverty while others are resilient enough to engage successfully in poverty reduction programmes under the auspices of the state and non- state actors. The life histories of the poor in two areas—one urban and one rural, suggest that identities are crucial for people to make a transition from poverty to non- poverty. The success of poverty reduction programmes depend on the ability of participants to make a break through financial, educational and other identified challenges.

Poverty is not an equal offender, hence it is more rampant amongst groups, including the San, that are educationally, economically, and socially disadvantaged. Poverty is caused by natural disasters that are not easily controllable and human causes often compounded by social injustice and deprivation. Poverty is also associated with illiteracy, gender-based violence, and different forms of socio- cultural abuse. University community engagement and conducive policy contexts are some of the strategies for African universities to pay back to their respective communities through local, regional and international partnerships.

Both lifelong learning and community engagement are tools for developing new ways of conceiving poverty and better ways of managing it.

Chapter 3 is about Botswana’s National Policy on poverty, and strategies for poverty reduction. These are discussed with a special focus on Lifelong learning and how Botswana made a gradual transition from poverty reduction to poverty eradication. The main focus is on poverty reduction programmes, both past and present. The initial focus was on ways to reduce poverty. Since the last five years, a gradual shift has been made to strive towards total eradication of poverty to make a significant impact in the lives of the victims. Poverty is more rampant amongst groups, including the San, that are educationally, economically, and socially disadvantaged. Poverty is caused by natural disasters that are not easily controllable and human causes often compounded by social injustice and deprivation. Poverty is also associated with illiteracy, gender-based violence, and different forms of socio- cultural abuse. University community engagement and conducive policy contexts are some of the strategies for African universities to pay back to their respective communities through local, regional and international partnerships.

Both lifelong learning and community engagement are tools for developing new ways of conceiving poverty and better ways of managing it. It can be concluded that a variety of state and non- state based responses to poverty have been tried. Those that worked have been retained and modified while those found unsuitable were replaced with more relevant ones within a given context.

Chapter 4 is on Entrepreneurship Development Training and Lifelong learning: The chapter hi-lights the interface between poverty and sustainable environmental education. A conclusion drawn is that until human populations can use environmental resources in a sustainable way, the need for environmental education has to continue for positive results. Environmental problems aggravate poverty; hence they need to be tackled to avoid poverty related to improper use of environmental resources and bad conservation practices.

A properly done SWOT analysis at a micro level can lead to success. A variety of entrepreneurship skills are needed for success. The skills are applied in different context as the business environments and incidents dictate. A more robust macro level analysis—PESTEL, is also proposed as important to gauge success of any programmes geared towards promoting lifelong learning, poverty eradication and community service and engagement. PESTEL requires an analysis of the PESTEL is an acronym for the Political: Economic: Social: Technological: Ecological and Legal structures in place as an environmental scan to gauge the potential for success of human social programmes for promotion of third mission, lifelong learning for poverty eradication.

This part of the book is about enhancing the contribution of the third mission of universities to poverty reduction and lifelong learning serves as part of the global agenda of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). ESD is about bringing change in several areas such as access to education, credit, employment structure, paid and unpaid work, ability to earn or obtain a source of livelihood for human pride and dignity. ESD adopts a rights based approach to education as a basic human right for bridging gaps and realizing social justice. about The Third Mission of universities must contribute to lifelong learning for positive behavioral change in the lives of the poor in Sub-Saharan Africa and particularly the D’kar community which is the focus of the case studies used to showcase best practice in community service and engagement. The global development route must be change for the betterment of the lives of communities with lifelong learning as promoted through the third mission of universities.

3 Part Two

Part two of the book focuses on the human dimensions of poverty taking into account business development training and, environmental issues, poverty within the San community, reducing poverty by inventive entrepreneurial skills, and youth and women’s empowerment.

Chapter 5 is on lifelong learning and small business management skills. The importance of capacity building through training is stressed as crucial for developing entreupreurship skills for poverty eradication. Both men and women were taught skills of an entrepreneur and how to invent goods and market them for sale to earn income and use that as a source of livelihood. They were also equipped with entrepreneurship skills such as marketing, customer care and service, small business, what counts as an enterprise, business planning, book keeping, etc. It was also concluded that while some entrepreneurs have influence and grooming by parents or guardians from early childhood, others have to be trained for success. People can be trained to acquire the requisite skills and do a SWOT analysis of themselves or organisations to determine the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats to their business idea or real environment.

This part of the book focuses on application of lifelong learning to environmental education problems, poverty reduction within the San community through inventive entrepreneurship. The youth in Gantsi are also discussed taking into account their quest for leadership roles and strengthening of traditional leadership. The book is informed by Sen and Nussumbas functionings and capabilities as articulated in the Social Justice theory, with a lot of emphasis on functionings and capabilities.

Functionings are ‘beings and doings’, that is, various states of human beings and activities that a person can undertake. Examples of the former (the ‘beings’) are being well-nourished, being undernourished, being housed in a pleasantly warm but not excessively hot house, being educated, being illiterate, being part of a supportive social network, being part of a criminal network, and being depressed. Examples of the second group of functionings (the ‘doings’) are travelling, caring for a child, voting in an election, taking part in a debate, taking drugs, killing animals, eating animals, consuming lots of fuel in order to heat one’s house, and donating money to charity.

Capabilities are a person’s real freedoms or opportunities to achieve functionings. Thus, while travelling is a functioning, the real opportunity to travel is the corresponding capability. The distinction between functionings and capabilities is between the realized and the effectively possible, in other words, between achievements, on the one hand, and freedoms or valuable opportunities from which one can choose, on the other.

The ability to act and engage in programmes to reduce poverty is a lifelong desired goal for the world to be a better place than it is for the poor.

Chapter 6 is on Lifelong learning and entrepreneurship development training as one of the drives towards poverty eradication, with a special focus on the San community of D’kar in Botswana. The chapter on Reducing Poverty by Inventive Entrepreneurship Skills builds on the discussion in Chap. 6 by suggesting inventive entrepreneurship as a way of reducing poverty amongst the San. The process of producing Batik cloth is discussed as one of the training programmes to capacitate D’kar women to produce cloth for sewing and sale. By the end of the training session, the first cloths were produced and ready to be worn or converted into goods for sale. This is aligned to the training and Education drive of the Government of Botswana.

Poverty in Botswana: The “Why Poverty” film and documentary by Steps International was broadcast to reach over 5000 million viewers around the world to kick start national and global debates on poverty in the twenty-first century. Eight one hour documentaries dealing with a variety of aspects of poverty were broadcast week of November 25th—30th 2012 through 70 broadcasters (The Voice, Friday November 23rd 2012, p. 6). This documentary is expected to spark debates on whether women were better at getting out of poverty than men and other questions related to “Why poverty”, as well as experiences of women and men in India and other parts of the world.

4 Corruption as a Cause of Poverty

As mentioned earlier, poverty in Botswana is caused by a range of human and natural problems. Amongst the human problems that have been identified since the last 10 years are allegations of corruption especially by senior civil servants and other in the high ranks of governance structures. Land grabbing, embezzlement of public funds and looting by members of parliament, cabinet ministers and top civil servants have been reported to various courts, including corruption courts, in relation to grabbing land for personal gains, allegations of bribery, and personal enrichment. Amongst the top stories were the BAMB corruption allegations, BMC failure to serve farmers, BDC allegations of wrongly tenders to Chinese companies, a Can manufacturing company worth millions of pula, and Serala-BTC deal involving, amongst others, a failure to declare person interest in the award of tenders under the auspices of BTC. While it is not the intension of the book to conclude whether or not corruption has been established, such allegations were very commonly made in 2012 (2012; Parliamentary Committee Report on the BDC (November 2012) with headings such as “BDC fat cats…”; “Fungyue lawyers says Matambo to blame for BDC mess”. “Another BDC embarrassment”. “Khama must act on BDC”…. (p. 12)

5 Poverty Eradication Strategy

“A total of P4, 6 million was used in poverty eradication events in Phuduhudu, Sehunou, and Struizendam” Minister of presidential affairs said this is parliament (p. 3, The Patriot, Sunday, November 18, 2012). Over 400 public officers participated per event in the three areas: Diphuduhudu spent P949, 080, Sehunou/Motsehgaletau P1, 1,509,788; and Struizendam P2, 191, 396. The last PITSO was held in Dikhukhung in 2012. The Struizendam Poverty Eradication Workshop was held 1st to 3rd November themed “Towards dignity for all” (2012)

Botswana like other African countries is a patriarchal society where women are mainly expected to be submissive and be led by men. Patriarchal tendencies often render women’s role as invisible in the public domain. Women need to be targeted for training so that they can rid themselves of poverty, which has a woman’s face. Trained women in D’kar are key actors in community projects, craft production and in performing household chores. Their often forgotten role in community development is illuminated in this chapter and how they were able to learn, work on batik and face challenges of staring their own businesses, and identifying markets for their products.

On setting up sustainable partnerships, Kuru, now known as the Kuru Family of Organizations (KFO), is a broad-based San support organization that engages in a wide variety of development activities. Its work ranges from doing capacity-building among community-based organizations to assisting local people in income generation and agricultural projects. Starting first in D’kar in western Botswana, Kuru expanded to other communities in Ghanzi District and in North West District (Ngamiland). Kuru was the first non-government organization to work directly with San in Botswana besides faith-based institutions. In the 1990s Kuru staff initiated an Early Childhood Care and Education Program (ECCE), part of which was devoted to establishing and running preschools. KURU is made up of a number of NGOs that specialize in providing services to the settlements where the San form a significant part of the population.

On sustainable environmental education, the emphasis is that poverty reduction and environmental sustainability go together. D’kar is a disadvantaged community which has over the last ten years had donors supporting community projects with the ultimate aim of reducing poverty. However, projects were not sustainable beyond the duration of donor funding. It was observed that as Botswana experienced donor fatigue from graduating from a list of the world’s poorest countries to a middle income one, donors came, worked and left the D’kar community.

Not much was achieved in terms of sustaining previous income generating projects. The planners of the partnership between Kellogg and Ba Isago observed that there was a need to change the mindset and give time to developing it over a couple of three years before expecting any meaningful sustainable income generating projects.

Kellogg and Ba Isago University College worked on a different strategy to change the mindsets, train and groom the community members towards sustainable income generation projects that engage different actors. As the project was monitored over the last three years, different levels of impacts were observed and these are the focus of the last part of this chapter.

The human dimensions of poverty: Sub-Saharan Africa, including Botswana, is confronted with poverty, general ignorance, illiteracy and inadequate access to education for gainful employment. A lot of progress has been made in widening universal access to education in Botswana. There are issues of quality that the country must resolve for reduction to be a robust force in poverty eradication as desired. In this part, it can be concluded that poverty is a global problem that disproportionately affects human populations by gender, race, ethnicity, and class. Poverty eradication is an overdue human rights issue. How poverty is tackled using lifelong learning through university engagement needs to be transformed for significant outputs.

Poverty eradication as one of the components of development should mean, amongst others, a lifelong search for new ways of eradicating poverty, and phasing off of obsolete programmes that do not make any significant impacts in the lives of affected communities. This includes access to employment, including self-employment and any project that can give people opportunities to earn or obtain a sense of livelihood, through a transformed entrepreneurship mindset. Lifelong learners must go through a changed entrepreneurship mindset to rid themselves of poverty. The entrepreneurship mindset is a resilient one that does not give up, stays focused on the ultimate goal, until the battle against poverty is won for a world without poverty.

Chapter 6 on Environmental Education Issues and poverty reduction suggest that sustainable use of environmental resources is very important for sustainable development. In conclusion, sustainable use of environmental resources is important for conservation for poverty reduction.

Chapter 7 discusses poverty with a special focus on the San. While it is appreciated that poverty is a global problem, it disproportionately affects people of different genders, countries and ethnic groups. The San are amongst the hardest hit by poverty in Botswana.

Chapter 8 is on Youth and Traditional Leadership in D'kar Community:

The D’kar community has got a predominantly young unemployed population (18–29 years). This population needed to be targeted for present and future leadership roles. Part of the role of Ba-Isago-Kellogg project was to capacitate the youth to develop leadership skills and takeover responsible roles for developing their community.

The chapter adopts a classical view of leadership and provides a rationale for leadership training within the D’kar community. The youth are usually perceived to be future leaders. This chapter covered the leadership and governance issues that were raised during workshops with D’kar Community leaders and youth. Several leadership styles and governance issues were discussed. The leadership skills have been combined with governance skills because it was observed that the Board of Trustees of D’ka r KURU Development Trust, which is the only institution that is responsible for providing social services to the residents of D’kar is made up of members who have not had any elections since the Trust was formed.

The youth, to be effective and efficient leaders, need to develop or polish their traditional leadership skills to succeed in taking their community to greater heights in poverty reduction and improved health to curb corrupt practices, and the spread of HIV/AIDS which is one of the fatal health problems in Botswana. The Ba- Isago/Kellogg project provided training for youth to lead in advisory capacity during the duration of the partnership and beyond.

Chapter 9: The Kellogg Foundation Guidelines on Community Development:

This chapter discusses the Kellogg Foundation Guidelines that paved the way for community development and engagement programmes through BA ISAGO University College in Botswana. draws from the work of the Kellogg Foundation Project for D’kar Development Trust facilitated by BA ISAGO University College under which women in D’kar attended a number of training programs to build their skills in tie and dye cloth production. The main objective of the training was to give the women special skills to make clothing materials through tie and dye which they would sell to tourists and create jobs for themselves. This activity is designed to alleviate poverty in the community and enhance self-sufficiency in the homes of target group. A Fabric paint project existed in D’kar for the past 10 years under Kuru D’kar Trust but it failed to make a positive impact on the community because of lack of involvement of the beneficiaries. As a result, there were only two women left in the project. It has now attracted fifteen women who are happy with the current leadership, which allows them to make important decisions on the project and the products made.

The process of capacity building is discussed in the context of three major actors: The Dutch Reformed Church, NGOS role over the last ten years, women and their role in income generation, and the Kellogg Foundation capacity building programme. The chapter gives highlights of some of the actual activities that were undertaken by community members as part of Capacity building for sustainable development and they include the list below: Principles of Business Management; Records and Bookkeeping for Small Businesses; Poultry Management; Good Governance for Board of Trustees; Traditional Leaders, Restaurant Hotel Management; Hotel Management; Cooperative Management;

Restaurant Management; Educational visit to a poultry farm in Botswana; Women, and Leadership and Economic Empowerment; Leadership and NGO Governance Training for Church Leaders and D’kar Elders Leadership and Board Management; Leadership and Strategic Planning for Businesses; Tourism Business Opportunities in Botswana; Customer Care and Marketing; Project Management, Opportunities in Tourism and Techniques of Game Farming. The trainees were councillors, staff and Village Development Committees.

The chapter further makes a link between capacity building and sustainable development. One of the key reasons for the existence of poverty is lack of capacity by communities to design and engage in sustainable development projects. It should be noted however that not all problems associated with poor performance in entrepreneurship development are attributed to lack of capacity. However, based on the training needs assessment, it was observed that most of the previous efforts had failed due to lack of capacity to sustain successful enterprises.

Botswana like other African countries is a patriarchal society where women are mainly expected to be submissive and be led by men. Patriarchal tendencies often render women’s role as invisible in the public domain.

This chapter concentrates on the work of the Kellogg Foundation Project for D’kar Development Trust facilitated by BA ISAGO University College under which women in Dkar attended a number of training programs to build their skills in tie and dye cloth production. The main objective of the training was to give the women special skills to make clothing materials through tie and dye which they would sell to tourists and create jobs for themselves. This activity is designed to alleviate poverty in the community and enhance self-sufficiency in the homes of target group. A Fabric paint project existed in D’kar for the past 10 years under Kuru D’kar Trust but it failed to make a positive impact on the community because of lack of involvement of the beneficiaries. As a result, there were only two women left in the project. It has now attracted fifteen women who are happy with the current leadership, which allows them to make important decisions on the project and the products made.

Trained women in D’kar are key actors in community projects, craft production and in performing household chores. Their often forgotten role in community development is illuminated in this chapter and how they were able to learn, work on batik and face challenges of staring their own businesses, and identifying markets for their products.

The three year duration of training and retraining work of NGOs with Ba Isago University within the poor San community of D’kar in Botswana was meant to equip the poor with inventive entrepreneurship skills. NGOs have served as gap fillers in partnership with the Government of Botswana for the San Community. Although the project had not been summatively evaluated at the time of writing this book, what became clear is that the trained San were able to make some products as a starting point towards developing show-casing the fruits of their training, and a changed mindset and skills for sustainable entrepreneurship development.

This chapter covers the history of KURU Family of Organisations. Kuru Development Trust was founded as a multipurpose development institution and registered officially with the Botswana Government as a charitable organization in 1986 after lengthy discussions with people in western Botswana and other parts of southern Africa. Kuru, now known as the Kuru Family of Organizations (KFO), is a broad-based San support organization that engages in a wide variety of development activities. Its work ranges from doing capacity-building among community-based organizations to assisting local people in income generation and agricultural projects. Starting first in D’kar in western Botswana, Kuru expanded to other communities in Ghanzi District and in North West District (Ngamiland). Kuru was the first non-government organization to work directly with San in Botswana besides faith-based institutions. In the 1990s Kuru staff initiated an Early Childhood Care and Education Program (ECCE), part of which was devoted to establishing and running preschools. KURU is made up of a number of NGOs that specialise in providing services to the settlements where the San form a significant part of the population.

D’kar is a disadvantaged community which has over the last ten years had donors supporting community projects with the ultimate aim of reducing poverty. However, projects were not sustainable beyond the duration of donor funding. It was observed that as Botswana experienced donor fatigue from graduating from a list of the world’s poorest countries to a middle income one, donors came, worked and left the D’kar community.

Not much was achieved in terms of sustaining previous income generating projects. The planners of the partnership between Kellogg and Ba Isago observed that there was a need to change the mindset and give time to developing it over a couple of three years before expecting any meaningful sustainable income generating projects. This chapter also covers the work of the Dkar KURU Development Trust before 1986. It was formed by the Dutch Reformed Church to provide social services to the San Community that developed around the Church farm. The San were running away from the white farmers who had taken over their land. The Church provided a sanctuary for them but it struggled to provide jobs and much needed social services such as water, roads, schools, and health care. Soon the Government of Botswana had to step in to fulfill this role. The fear of government interventions continues up to this day.

Kellogg and Ba Isago University College worked on a different strategy to change the mindsets, train and groom the community members towards sustainable income generation projects. As the project was monitored over the last three years, different levels of impacts were observed and these are the focus of this chapter.

Chapter 10 is on the Kellogg Foundation Guidelines on Community Development:

The Kellogg Foundation Guidelines on community development are based on the assumption that development is essentially about building the capacity of communities to make their own economic, social and spiritual decisions. The process is targeted at selected sites and communities, where careful experimentations of change processes can be undertaken and documented, in order to generate new insights and knowledge that can be shared with other sites and communities across the sub-region. The aim of the approach is to help build local capacity for self drive—particularly in youth, women and families. The capacity to self-drive is developed through supporting rural communities to learn to self-start, self-assess, and self-correct. The approach further aims to build the leadership systems and the capabilities needed to provide local people with a favourable environment, as well as the confidence and resources to lead their own social and economic transformation. The emphasis is thus on local communities’ ability to initiate, implement and assess programs and initiatives that serve their own needs and thereby reinforce their self-drive mindset.

This chapter, in conclusion further provides the Ba- Isago and Kellogg Foundation partnership and guidelines and how these were applied to the ITMUA case study project since 2009 when Kellogg started working with the community. Community development poses challenges of understanding the demographic characteristics of the poor and making an input to the betterment of their lives.

In practice, the third mission of universities—community service for development—provided the space to address such challenges of developing the D’kar community in a way that refocused its research and teaching missions to transform and revitalize the relationship between higher education and national development needs through the Ba Isago and Kellogg Foundation.

6 Part Three: University Community Development and Engagement

Part three of the book is on the last 4 chapters that focus on University community development and engagement.

Chapter 11: Community service, lifelong learning for poverty reduction in selected African universities:

In this chapter we discuss two projects that typify community service and engagement for poverty reduction. First is the experience of BA ISAGO University College training project in partnership with Kellogg Foundation in the implementation of the Community Based Planning Programme that was based on the ZOOMING APPROACH in the DKAR Community and its surrounding resettlements areas, which are occupied by the minority San Tribe. The ZOOMING APPROACH is a participatory and interactive engagement approach to local development, developed and refined by the WKKF’s Africa Programme on the basis of lessons and experience from its work in the region. Another project given as an example of best practice is the ITMUA project which studied two cases of community engagement.

The main argument posed in this chapter, using the four university projects mentioned above, is that community service is, compared to teaching and research, (first and second missions) expected of university academics. However, this third mission of universities and their engagement with communities is usually underdeveloped because of the growing attention paid to teaching and research in promotion applications.

The ITMUA regional collaborative project which informs this chapter consisted of an African partnership network of four universities. The network was funded by the British Academy African Partnerships (BAAP) programme 2006–2009. The network conducted small scale case studies, in association with the University of Glasgow, into the effectiveness of non-formal education (NFE) for poverty reduction. The ITMUA project built on those findings to explore the potential role of NFE (as a key aspect of community service) in higher education on a wider scale.

The chapter discusses community service, student and community learning for poverty reduction by illuminating examples that promoted best practices form the ITMUA project discussed earlier in Chap. 2. ITMUA was a Pan-African action research study funded by the Association of African Universities between 2010 and 2011 involving the University of Calabarin Nigeria, Universities of Botswana and Malawi and the National University of Lesotho. The aim was to explore the extent to which university community service missions were addressing, and could be developed to address, national priorities in relation to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that were agreed in the year 2000 by most countries around the world as global targets to be reached by 2015.

The ITMUA project aimed to investigate ways in which community service can complement teaching and research activities in responding to diverse communities and national development needs. In this chapter we discuss two projects that typify community service and engagement for poverty reduction. First is the experience of BA ISAGO University College training project in partnership with Kellogg Foundation in the implementation of the Community Based Planning Programme that was based on the ZOOMING APPROACH in the DKAR Community and its surrounding resettlements areas, which are occupied by the minority San Tribe. The ZOOMING APPROACH is a participatory and interactive engagement approach to local development, developed and refined by the WKKF’s Africa Programme on the basis of lessons and experience from its work in the region. Another project given as an example of best practice is the ITMUA project which studied two cases of community engagement.

The main argument posed in this chapter, using the two university projects mentioned above, is that community service is, compared to teaching and research, (first and second missions) expected of university academics. However, this third mission of universities and their engagement with communities is usually underdeveloped because of the growing attention paid to teaching and research in promotion criteria applications.

Chapter 12 builds on Chap. 11 by focusing on Capacity Building for Sustainable Development in D’kar Community: Three key actors have been very instrumental in building capacity of the San over the last decades: The Dutch Reformed Church, Women and Non Governmental Organisations. The D’kar community resides on a farm originally owned by the Dutch Reformed Church. The church initially played a very active role in developing the plot but efforts were pulled back by gaps in donor support. Lack of continuity is a factor in residents reverting to alcohol and substance abuse as a result of having no work to occupy their lives.

The chapter gives highlights of three key actors in capacity building, and some of the actual activities that were undertaken by community members as part of Capacity building for sustainable development. The Dutch Reformed Church, NGOs including Kellogg Foundation, and women.

The Dutch Reformed Church served the D’kar community very well in setting up KURU Development Trust. This chapter covers the work of the D’kar KURU Development Trust before 1986. It was formed by the Dutch Reformed Church to provide social services to the San Community that developed around the Church farm. The San were running away from the white farmers who had taken over their land. The Church provided a sanctuary for them but it struggled to provide jobs and much needed social services such as water, roads, schools, and health care. Soon the Government of Botswana had to step in to fulfill this role. The fear of government interventions continues up to this day.

The D’kar community resides on a farm originally owned by the Dutch Reformed Church. The church initially played a very active role in developing the plot but efforts were pulled back by gaps in donor support. Lack of continuity is a factor in residents reverting to alcohol and substance abuse as a result of having no work to occupy their lives. Working as a Trust-Kuru Family has given impetus to renewed donor support and it is now up to the communities in the area to take advantage of the training to rid themselves of poverty.

The chapter further illuminates the work and Impact of NGOs over the last ten years in D’kar San Community through the KURU Family of Organisations. Kuru Development Trust was founded as a multipurpose development institution and registered officially with the Botswana Government as a charitable organization in 1986 after lengthy discussions with people in western Botswana and other parts of southern Africa.

The capacity building training can be classified as leadership and management training, business management and technical training. The list of courses covered were:

Principles of Business Management; Records and Bookkeeping for Small Businesses; Poultry Management; Good Governance for Board of Trustees; Traditional Leaders, Restaurant Hotel Management; Hotel Management; Cooperative Management;

Restaurant Management; Educational visit to a poultry farm in Botswana; Women, and Leadership and Economic Empowerment; Leadership and NGO Governance Training for Church Leaders and D’kar Elders Leadership and Board Management; Leadership and Strategic Planning for Businesses; Tourism Business Opportunities in Botswana; Customer Care and Marketing; Project Management, Opportunities in Tourism and Techniques of Game Farming. The trainees were councillors, staff and Village Development Committees.

The three year duration of training and retraining work of NGOs with Ba Isago University within the poor San community of D’kar in Botswana was meant to equip the poor with inventive entrepreneurship skills. NGOs have served as gap fillers in partnership with the Government of Botswana for the San Community. Although the project had not been summatively evaluated at the time of writing this book, what became clear is that the trained San were able to make some products as a starting point towards developing show-casing the fruits of their training, and a changed mindset and skills for sustainable entrepreneurship development.

The chapter further makes a link between capacity building and sustainable development. One of the key reasons for the existence of poverty is lack of capacity by communities to design and engage in sustainable development projects. It should be noted however that not all problems associated with poor performance in entrepreneurship development are attributed to lack of capacity. However, based on the training needs assessment, it was observed that most of the previous efforts had failed due to lack of capacity to sustain successful enterprises.

Working as a Trust-Kuru Family has given impetus to renewed donor support and it is now up to the communities in the area to take advantage of the training to rid themselves of poverty.

Chapter 13 is on Building Partnerships for Sustainable Community Development:

This chapter uses examples of Non-State Actors partnerships with the San and Government of Botswana Departments that were invited to inform the people of Dkar on some of the social services and economic empowerment programmes that were available for the people. The ultimate goal of capacity building is to eradicate poverty. Apparently many people in D’kar were not aware of what opportunities were being offered by the Government. So the meetings that were conducted by the Kellogg Foundation project were highly informative, and were appreciated by the residents of D’kar. In this chapter, we share the details of the government programs and how the community could benefit from them.

MDGs as ratified in 2004 have a goal that speaks to the importance of partnerships. Signed up to by all country members of the United Nations, MDGs 8 has provided an added impetus to refocus and re-align partnership issues around development needs around the MDG targets:

MDG goal 8: Develop a global Partnership for Development.

Local, regional and global partnerships are crucial to build for prudent management of scarce resources to promote lifelong learning, poverty reduction programme strategies for sustainable community development and engagement even without donor support.

This chapter provides examples of Government of Botswana Departments that were invited to inform the people of Dkar on some of the social services and economic empowerment programmes that were available for the people. Apparently many people in D’kar were not aware of what opportunities were being offered by the Government. So the meetings that were conducted by the Kellogg Foundation project were highly informative, and were appreciated by the residents of D’kar. In this chapter, we share the details of the government programs and how the community could benefit from them.

MDGs as ratified in 2004 have a goal that speaks to the importance of partnerships. Signed up to by all country members of the United Nations, MDGs 8 has provided an added impetus to refocus and re-align partnership issues around development needs around the MDG targets:

MDG goal 8: Develop a global Partnership for Development.

Local, regional and global partnerships are crucial to build for prudent management of scarce resources to promote lifelong learning, poverty reduction programme strategies for sustainable community development and engagement even without donor support.

Overall, this last section of the book contributes to a better understanding of initiatives in community service and engagement for poverty reduction. Development cannot be achieved without sustainable use of human, natural and non- human resources. It is therefore imperative that any efforts to bring about development must address all issues and design robust and requisite interventions. Amongst the issues to address are environmental issues, educational challenges, amongst others.

Community development through lifelong learning requires short term and long term goals to ensure that the already socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged groups, especially the San, are targeted to redress the ethnic based disparities aggravated by geographical location, issues of social status, class and gender.