The Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) was established by the Small Business Act of 2004, Chapter 43:10 of the Laws of Botswana to carry out on behalf of the Government of Botswana, and more specifically the Ministry of Investment Trade and Industry (MTI), the mandate of entrepreneurship and enterprise development in Botswana.

Our Mandate
In accordance with the Small Business Act, the Authority’s mandate is to promote entrepreneurship and SMME development through:

Providing business development services inter alia through; screening, business plan facilitation, training and mentoring;
Identifying business opportunities for existing and future SMMEs;
Promoting domestic and international linkages, especially between SMMEs and government, large business entities and other SMMEs;
Facilitating changes in regulations, quality management systems and standards, infrastructure and access to finance;
Facilitating technology adoption and diffusion;
Promoting general entrepreneurship and SMME awareness.
The Authority’s key deliverables in summary are as follows;

Promotion of citizen entrepreneurship;
Further diversification of the economy;
Promotion of exports;
Development of a competitive SMME community;
Creation of sustainable employment opportunities;
Promotion of the development of vertical integration and the horizontal linkages; between SMMEs and primary industries in agriculture, mining and tourism;
Improved efficiency in the delivery of services to business;
Promotion of business linkages between small and large enterprises.

The Authority prides itself on having an extensive country-wide footprint of 13 branches. Through the guidance of the Quality Management System Standard ISO 9001, the highly specialized quality of service is standardized in all the branches and clients are therefore guaranteed excellent service in the entire LEA branch network regardless of the location. The thirteen branches are in Francistown, Gaborone, Ghanzi, Kanye, Kasane, Masunga, Maun, Mochudi, Molepolole, Ramotswa, Selibe-Phikwe, Serowe and Tsabong. In addition to the branches, there are four Business Incubators whose objective is to provide business space, shared facilities and impact driven interventions geared at attaining accelerated growth of the enterprises incubated.