GABORONE, July 4 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Botswana's Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry on Wednesday launched a program that seeks to address economic diversification and unemployment challenges facing the southern African country.

The Business Supplier Development Program, whose Memorandum of Understanding was signed in January, focuses on three main areas, being Policy Design, Policy Implementation as well as Policy Monitoring and Evaluation.

The program aims to create demand-based, market-driven opportunities for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to increase their competitiveness.

Through the program, local consultants would be trained to deliver capacity building interventions for SMEs as well as linking them with suppliers.

Speaking at the commencement of the program on Wednesday, Peggy Serame, Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry, said this program was a welcome development for the government, but mostly the private sector, as it marks yet another milestone aimed at positively transforming the landscape of SMEs in Botswana.

She said through the program methodology, small-scale producers or suppliers would be connected to larger markets locally and abroad.

She also noted that the program would strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the country to encourage innovation and create employment.

According to World Bank Country Diagnostics, she said, the formal private sector in Botswana created on average just over 3,000 jobs per year, over the period 2003 to 2010, far below the level needed to absorb the 15,000-20,000 annual new entrants to the labor market.

While the pace of growth of non-farm self-employment has increased in recent years, she said it still accounts for 23 percent of private sector employment and 10 percent of all employment.