02 Feb 2021

Ministry of Finance and Economic Development is developing a demographic dividend roadmap that will identify priority projects to help Batswana harness the demographic dividend.

This was said by finance minister, Dr Thapelo Matsheka, when delivering the 2021 budget speech on Monday February 1, where he noted that appropriate interventions would help government to unleash youth potential.

He said the roadmap, which would be completed this year, would also help to harness the benefits of a bulging working age population.

He said the demographic dividend study carried out in 2018 focused on employment and entrepreneurship, education and skills development, health and wellbeing as well as human rights, governance and youth empowerment.

He also noted a significant decline in the country’s fertility and mortality in the last five decades.

The decline, he said, had resulted in the country’s age structure shifting from having many children, to one with which up to 60 per cent of the population in the working age population of 15-64.

He described this high proportion of the working age population as a unique ‘window of opportunity’ often termed the demographic dividend, which he said if seized, could propel the economic growth and prosperity in the country.

He said the National Population and Housing census planned for August 2021 had been postponed to next year due to the movement restrictions in place to control the pandemic.

He, however, assured the nation that given the importance of the census to development planning and democracy, government would strive to undertake the exercise mid next year and provide the results by the end of the year. ENDS