Sometime back, I can’t recall the exact year, but I am certain it was before 2019, I submitted some arguments for Ernesto’s Briefs concerning the role of former diplomats and academia in advancing and enriching a

country’s foreign relations policy.

If my memory serves me well that was around the time when former Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Lapologang Caesar Lekoa, a career diplomat who’s been almost everywhere representing Botswana, was busy putting together a Foreign Policy for Botswana.

The gist of the deliberations was that our former diplomats – and we have them in droves- need to organise into some form of collective, to assist the government of the day, including academia and civil society, in unbundling complex geopolitical events to make them simple for government and the citizens to adopt a common position in respect of those events.

Take the example of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or whatever it is! If such a body existed, it would have given us a clear, hopefully, objective analysis of what led to the current war and the position that Botswana must adopt in relation to Russia, Ukraine the European Union, the USA, and how the country must vote were any resolution to come up in the United Nations around this question.

The world is moving at supersonic speed, and most of us cannot make sense of world events and the bearing they have on us, hence the imperative of such an association or think-tank! At that time Mr. Lekoa, currently an Ambassador At Large, gave the thought his blessings.

So, you cannot imagine the joy it filled my heart when I came across something very similar to that thought, known only as the University of Botswana Ambassadorial Leadership Forum (UBALF), which professes to be an institutional body that was established by the Department of Political and Administrative Studies, the University of Botswana in 2019.

According to its brochure, the core vision of UBALF is to ‘provide a forum in which resident diplomats and former envoys in Gaborone, Botswana, share their views and experiences on the role they play in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy beyond handshaking with respective Heads of State.

‘Its mission is to contribute to national, regional, continental and global peace through the documentation of the role of diplomats while its objective is to provide a conducive and enduring environment for epistemological debate by diplomats in contemporary regional, continental, and global issue areas’.

‘The underlying mandate of UBALF is to develop a benchmark in a periodic setting for documenting, through its flagship, UBALF Monograph Series (UBALFMS) and Policy Briefs publication, workshop proceedings of practicing diplomats resident in Botswana as well as the former Botswana diplomats who have completed their Tours of Duty’.

Going through this brochure, I felt as if the Department of Political and Administrative Studies had read my mind when they came up with UBALF. It captures the essence of the think tank that we had in mind.

And I was gratified that this leadership forum is located within the country’s premiere institution of higher learning.

The underlying mandate of UBALF, according to its framers, is to develop a benchmark in a periodic setting for documenting, through its flagship, UBALF Monograph Series (UBALFMS) and Policy Briefs publication, workshop proceedings of practicing diplomats resident in Botswana as well as the former Botswana diplomats who have completed their Tours of Duty.

That’s exactly what we had suggested, and to find that we have struck a chord with such an esteemed institution, is humbling to say the very least!

According to the brochure, the UBALF workshops and seminars will provide useful fora for scholars, students, and stakeholders to engage in reciprocal discourse with diplomats on issues pertaining to international affairs.

Therefore, UBALF will be an open, nonpartisan platform for the diplomatic community, scholars, students, and stakeholders to expand the leadership knowledge and its inherent potential in the region, the continent, and globally.

The UBALF is, thus, in consonance with, among others, the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Intercourse; the 1949 Geneva Diplomatic Convention, and the 1963 Vienna Convention and Consular Relations.

The gist of the deliberations was that our former diplomats – and we have them in droves - need to organise into some form of collective, to assist the government of the day, including academia and civil society, in unbundling complex geopolitical events to make them simple for government and the citizens to adopt a common position in respect of those events.