21 Mar 2018

Botswana has been ranked amongst top three in Africa for spending on social protection services and creating systems that were targeted at poverty eradication and remote area development.

This was said by the World Bank senior economist Mr Victor Sulla during the International Conference on the Fight against Poverty, Exclusion and Inequality in Gaborone on March 20. He noted that the country had good targeted systems in place for reducing poverty and increasing human capital development.

These targeted systems, he said included as many people adding that Botswana has very high spending on social protection.

“About 4.4 per cent of its GDP is spent on Social Protection,” he said adding that when a country spends as much, the figures should correlate with poverty reduction levels and show improvements in people’s livelihoods.

Speaking during the conference the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development Mr Slumber Tsogwane affirmed government’s commitment towards poverty eradication. He disclosed that as at December 2017 government support was given to 213, 053 beneficiaries which consisted of destitute persons, needy students, world war veterans, community home based care, old age pensioners, orphans, as well as people living with disabilities.

He said this was made possible by the fact that Botswana had followed prudent fiscal policies that have made wise use of revenues from a narrow natural resource base to develop other sectors.

“Government has over the years demonstrated commitment towards poverty eradication. This commitment has helped alleviate abject levels of poverty as some money had been channeled towards social safety nets,” he said.

Further he said it was government’s commitment to ensure that everyone was not left behind in the fight as enshrined in the national vision 2036 which envisages achieving prosperity for all. 

The minister noted that Botswana had adopted National Development Plan 11 in 2016 which was in line with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agenda.

He said to realise the vision, various strategies had been devised to tackle various populations including reaching out to people in rural communities.

Mr Tsogwane said some of the programmes and policies offered to the needy were of a social protection nature while some were of economic empowerment meant for them to graduate from poverty. ENDS