Miss World Africa beauty queen and Botswana’s youngest cabinet minister

Lesego Chombo’s enthusiasm for all times is as infectious as her achievements are spectacular: she has received the Miss Botswana 2022 and Miss World Africa 2024 crowns, is a working lawyer, has arrange her personal charitable basis – and made historical past in November, changing into Botswana’s youngest cupboard minister.

She was simply 26 years previous on the time – and had clearly impressed Botswana’s incoming President Duma Boko, whose Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) had simply received a landslide, ousting the celebration that had ruled for 58 years.

It was a seismic shift within the politics of the diamond-rich southern African nation – and Boko, a 55-year-old Harvard-trained lawyer, hit the bottom operating.

His important focus, he mentioned, was fixing an financial system too reliant on diamonds, telling the BBC ahead of his inauguration that he wanted young people to be the solution – “to turn out to be entrepreneurs, make use of themselves and make use of others”.

Key to this was discovering an acceptable ambassador – and Chombo was clearly it: a younger lady already dedicated to varied causes.

He made her minister of youth and gender.

“I’ve by no means been extra proud to be younger,” she advised the BBC on the ministry’s headquarters within the capital, Gaborone.

“I am an adolescent dwelling in Botswana, enthusiastic about youth improvement, gender equality, but additionally so passionate in regards to the improvement of kids.”

The wonder queen didn’t marketing campaign to be an MP – she is what known as a specifically elected member of parliament – and is now one in every of simply six feminine MPs within the 69-member Nationwide Meeting.

Chombo mentioned changing into an MP after which minister got here as an entire shock to her.

“I bought appointed by a president who had by no means met me,” she mentioned.

“Miss World and the journey that I believed I used to be alleged to pursue as my ultimate vacation spot was solely the platform via which I might be seen for this very function.”

It was her crowning as Miss Botswana in 2022 that raised her profile and enabled her to marketing campaign for social change, whereas attempting to encourage different younger girls.

It additionally gave her the chance to arrange the Lesego Chombo Basis, which focuses on supporting deprived kids and their dad and mom in rural areas – and which she continues to be concerned with, its initiatives funded by company firms and others.

“We try to have a world the place we really feel seen and heard and represented. I am very thrilled that I occur to be the very essence of that illustration,” she mentioned.

As she ready for final yr’s Miss World pageant, she mentioned: “I actually put myself within the zone of service. I actually channelled it for this massive crown.”

Now in political workplace, she is conscious of the expectations positioned on her in a rustic the place roughly 60% of the inhabitants is under 35 years.

It additionally has a excessive degree of unemployment – 28%, which is even larger for younger folks and girls who’ve restricted financial alternatives and battle systemic corruption.

Chombo mentioned this was one thing she was decided to vary: “At the moment in Botswana, the charges of unemployment are so excessive.

“Nevertheless it’s not simply the speed of unemployment, it is also simply the sphere of youth improvement.

“It is missing, and so my want is to create an ecosystem, an atmosphere, a society, an financial system through which youth can thrive.”

Chombo mentioned her plan was to develop a complete system that nurtured youth-led initiatives, strengthened entrepreneurship and ensured younger folks had a seat on the desk when selections had been being made.

With Botswana’s anti-corruption coverage present process a rigorous overview, she mentioned this is able to be certain that quotas for younger entrepreneurs – when state departments and businesses put out tenders for items and companies – had been truly reached.

The federal government has begun a 10-month forensic audit of presidency spending that can embody 30 state-owned enterprises.

Certainly President Boko is intent on cracking down on corruption, seeing this as a solution to bolter investor confidence and diversify the financial system – one thing his deputy has been looking for to do on latest journeys to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Switzerland.

And a key deal has now been secured with UAE-based CCI International, a supplier of enterprise course of outsourcing, to open a hub in Botswana.

Whereas youth improvement is a central pillar of her work, gender fairness additionally stays near her coronary heart.

Her quick time in workplace has coincided with a rising outcry over gender-based violence.

In keeping with a United Nations Inhabitants Fund (UNFPA) report, over 67% of girls in Botswana have skilled abuse, greater than double the worldwide common.

“It hurts to know that it might be me subsequent,” she admitted.

A month into her appointment, she was criticised for voting in opposition to an opposition movement in parliament to create “peace desks” at police stations and Justice of the Peace courts to shortly cope with victims.

On the time she mentioned such provisions already existed throughout the regulation and what was wanted was extra public consciousness.

This was adopted in January by a police report noting that at the least 100 girls had been raped and one other 10 murdered in the course of the festive season – this precipitated public outrage with many lashing out at her on social media over the difficulty.

The minister reiterated – on a number of events, including before parliament in March – that Botswana had many legal guidelines and techniques in place and what was vital was to make sure these they had been truly utilized.

However she advised the BBC the federal government could be pushing for the implementation of a Gender-Based mostly Violence Act, aimed toward closing authorized loopholes which have lengthy hindered justice for survivors.

She mentioned she was additionally advocating a extra holistic strategy, involving the ministries of well being, schooling and native authorities.

“We wish curriculums that promote gender fairness from a younger age,” Chombo mentioned.

“We wish to train kids what gender-based violence is and the right way to forestall it.

“It can boil right down to inclusion of instructing gender fairness at house, how dad and mom behave round their kids, how they mannequin good behaviour.”

She has additionally been vocal about the necessity to tackle points affecting males, notably round psychological well being and constructive masculinity, encouraging chiefs “to make sure that our patriarchal tradition shouldn’t be actively perpetuating gender violence”.

“I hear lots of people say: ‘Why do you converse of girls greater than males?’

“It is as a result of because it stands in society, girls are principally prejudiced [against].

“However after we converse of gender equality, we’re saying that it must be utilized equally for everybody. However what we attempt for is gender fairness.”

Chombo, who studied regulation on the College of Botswana, mentioned she was grateful to her mom and different sturdy girls for uplifting her – saying that ladies needed to work “10 occasions more durable” to succeed.

“[My mother] has managed to create an atmosphere for me to thrive. And rising up, I bought to grasp that it isn’t a simple factor.

“As girls, we face so many pressures: ‘A girl can not do that. A girl cannot do this. A girl cannot be younger and in management.’ I am at the moment dealing with that.”

She additionally credited Julia Morley, the CEO of Miss World, for serving to her: “She has managed to create a legacy of what we name magnificence with a objective for therefore many younger ladies the world over.

“She has simply impressed us so deeply to take up social accountability.”

Chombo is critical about this. The wonder queen-cum-lawyer-cum-minister is aware of she has made historical past – however can also be conscious that her actual work has solely simply begun.

“Impression. Tangible affect. That is what success would appear to be to me,” she mentioned.

“I wish to look again and see that it’s there and it’s sustainable. That once I go away, another person is ready to carry it via.”

Extra reporting from Harmless Selatlhwa in Gaborone