Francistown COE Institutional Profile

The City of Francistown as the second city in the country is situated in the Northern part of Botswana closer to the boarders of Zimbabwe,it has Population/audience of 113.315. Tati river is one of the natural entities found in the city. The city is a major transport hub. It has a railway line which links the city with Harare in Zimbabwe via Bulawayo. City of Francistown has undertaken a lot of projects which has greatly succeeded. Sports is part of livelihood of Francistown.
There is a gender action plan in the council even though it is not yet adopted and it will be planned for in due time since they is an upcoming gender workshop and the council will have a meeting to adopt it. They is no equality currently in the council, few women than men (2 women out of 22 men councillors and 4 committees of which 2 are chaired by women, but only 2 of 6 women are in leadership positions.

There is also good participation of women and men at public meetings and events; they all come in large numbers. Francistown city council have an existing gender mainstreaming project that is market squares where more women are seen selling out there, there are also a number of projects that are run by women in the city of Francistown like Itekeng savings Federation scheme, the organisation which was introduced to eradicate poverty and save money. The programme also host events with other stakeholders in the city like voluntary testing for HIV /AIDS. The initiative comes after the women in the community realised that in the SADC region Botswana had until they start the scheme was the only country with no saving federation scheme. A member of the federation scheme, Ms Gladys Matlape said she had benefited a lot since she introduction of the scheme, she explained the scheme helped her support her children, connect water and electricity in her home.

HIV/ AIDS epidemic is a major challenge in the City Council. It mostly affects the youth and young adults, a population segment that is most productive. Also, immigrants from neighbouring Zimbabwe are perceived as competition for basic resources and services from both government and local authority. One of the nurse from the council clinic in the city indicated that the rate of people infected by HIV in the city was too high, attributing to trend to lack of education and alcohol abuse.
Over the past years, the Francistown City Council authorities have been putting in place processes and critical development to turn the city challenges into opportunities. The City of Francistown Council is responsible for running primary health care in the city, including maternity.
In terms of public utilities the city of Francistown has sufficient supplies of with spare capacity. Water is supplied through a pipeline running from Shashe dam 18 km from the city and also the dam serves as recreational area for fishing and picnics.

The City of Francistown is aware of climate change, thus littering and burning of any waste is strictly prohibited. They is a waste management plans, that is recycling of waste materials like papers and plastics and gender statistics shows that women are the most recyclers than men and they make a lot of thing out of those like jewelleries, flower pots etc.