22 Mar 2018

Ngamiland District has experienced a decline in poverty levels as per the recent Botswana Multi-Topic Household Survey of 2015/16 released in January.

The survey revealed that Ngamiland East has poverty level of 21.6 per cent while Ngamiland West is at 33.4 per cent and thus demonstrated a decline in poverty levels of 1.0 per cent and 12.8 per cent in both east and west respectively.

The council chairperson, Mr Duncan Enga said this during an ongoing full council meeting when updating the house about poverty eradication in the district. 

He said the decline was remarkable especially in Ngamiland West, adding that it showed that the poverty eradication programme impacted positively on the livelihoods of Batswana in general.

At the beginning of the programme, the level of poverty in Ngamiland East was at 22.6 per cent and 46.2 per cent in Ngamiland District as per the Botswana Core Welfare Indicators Survey of 2009/10.

Regarding the district poverty eradication backlog, Mr Enga said a total of 200 clients were awaiting training while 321 were awaiting funding. In addition, he said the District Poverty Eradication Unit was currently still training and packaging approved clients, but due to insufficient funds, the clients who have not been catered for,  trained and packaged yet would be assisted in the next financial year.

He urged fellow councillors to inform their electorate to be patient.

The councillors also learnt that as a way of providing habitable accommodation for the less privileged, the council has been allocated a total of 100 houses to be built during 2018/19 financial year at a cost of P100 000 per unit.

The district has also been allocated a total of 50 houses to be built in RADP areas and all the houses are targeted to be completed by December.

Mr Enga also informed them that they had started implementing the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach by rolling it out to Okavango Sub -district communities.

Sustainable Livelihoods Approach is an integral part of the community development in the country. It provides an analytic framework for systematically examining the underlying processes and causes of poverty and how a community might tackle their concerns.

The approach focuses attention on people’s livelihoods and is based on the core principles of a people-centred, holistic and dynamic analysis and its objective is to mobilise and stimulate community’s interest to plan and take action and to actively participate in the decisions  on development.

However, Mr Enga explained that workshops are ongoing and would run until August 10, adding that villages that would be covered are Sepopa, Etsha, Seronga, Tube, Xakao, Qangwa, Nokaneng, Shakawe, Mogotlho, Nxamasere and Gudingwa. 

On other issues, the chairperson stated that teenage pregnancy was still a challenge in the district. 

He reported that a total of 136 cases were registered during quarter three with three cases being girls aged 15 years and below.

He said although there has been a slight decrease of 17 pregnancies when compared to the last quarter where a total of 153 cases were registered with four cases aged 15 years and below. 

Most of the cases were recorded in Maun and Etsha 6 and Mr Enga urged all stakeholders to come up with collective ways of reducing the cases.

He said District Health Management Team has already collaborated with non-governmental organizations such as ACHAP, BOCAIP and BONELA to fight teenage pregnancy. ENDS