We believe it’s fair to say that most Jamaicans know next to nothing about Botswana — a landlocked southern African nation, 224,607 square miles in size, with just 2.7 million people. Rich in minerals, including diamonds, Botswana is classified as a fast-growing, middle-income country with an increasingly diverse economy.

Though not highlighted by acclaimed reggae artistes in the same way as were some of its neighbours, Botswana endured its fair share of colonial domination and exploitation, even after its official political independence from Britain in the mid-1960s.

And, it was counted among the ‘front line’ African states which 40-50 years ago stood in defence of black majority rule for Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa in the face of warped, racist, fascist aggression.

Against that backdrop, and much more — not least African ancestral roots for the majority of Caribbean people — this newspaper welcomes a recent partnership between The University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University of Botswana (UB) formalised in a memorandum of understanding.

The UWI’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor Principal Professor Densil Williams credits “adroit partnerships and collaboration” such as this for the evolution of the two universities to being “among the elite in the global academic community”.

Head of a six-member delegation from UB, Vice-Chancellor Professor David Norris argued that both universities “can work… together to solve big problems that governments and industry are not able to solve”.

We are told that the partnership is intended to enhance cooperation in research, governance, academic publications, student and staff exchanges, teaching and learning, et al.

Also captured in discussions were media and cultural studies, tourism and hospitality management, sports development, sports medicine, the creative arts, trade and economic relations, climate change, food security, technology, among other issues.

We note that former Jamaican Prime Minister Mr P J Patterson, who heads the P J Patterson Institute for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy, and other leaders connected to The UWI were among those involved in the recent discussions.

It seems to us that, from a Caribbean perspective, central to a partnership such as this must be a proactive effort by The UWI to assist our people to learn more about Africa, the shared historical realities of that continent and our region, including European colonial domination and exploitation, and the consequences that affect us to this day.

The current debate in Jamaica involving departure from the British Monarchy, proposed separation from the UK Privy Council, and related constitutional matters are consequences, part and parcel, of that history of colonial rule and slavery. So, too, is the urgent necessity for reparation.

We look forward to similar ties with universities in West Africa, from which ancestors of most of our people were infamously shipped in chains more than 200 years ago. Such partnerships should be committed to the comprehensive, yet simple sharing and dissemination of study, knowledge, information, for the greater good of our identity as a people.

Of course, we must not forget that people of Asian and European extraction, as well as descendants of those who were here before colonisation are also central to the melting pot that is the Caribbean and wider Americas. Their ancestral stories, too, must be told.