Botswana is usually called Africa’s oldest democracy. From time immemorial there has been a system with village assemblies, where decisions have been made about villages’ affairs and where the village chief has ruled over minor disputes. This has provided the country with solid democratic foundations.
In 1966, Botswana gained independence from the United Kingdom and has had a multi-party system ever since. Constitutional law gives all people the same rights, there is freedom of expression and there are no reports of political prisoners. However, Botswana has retained the death penalty and Botswanan law forbids sexual relationships between people of the same sex. Transparency International ranks Botswana as Africa’s least corrupt country.
Since its independence, Botswana has gone from being one of the world’s 10 poorest countries to becoming one of the wealthiest in Africa, largely thanks to its diamond industry. There has been high economic growth and much of the population has benefitted from an improved standard of living.
Dark cloud over achievements
However, behind the success story is a country with huge poverty and enormous gaps in earnings; one-third of the population is living in extreme poverty. This problem is made worse by HIV/Aids, which poses a serious threat to the country’s progress.
Botswana is one of the countries where the illness has spread most. More than one-third of the population is infected and the average life expectancy has sunk by about 20 years, to 41.4 years. The number of parentless children is increasing at an alarming rate, from about 65,000 in 2000 to an estimated 200,000 by 2015.
There is strong political leadership and the country has come a long way in some aspects, such as the general access to anti-retroviral medicine and the introduction of routine testing. But providing care for those affected, looking after orphans and coping with growth when those who are able to work among the population are taken away, are major challenges for Botswana.
Target to halve poverty
Botswana’s long-term targets are stated in “Vision 2016”, which includes the country’s development targets 50 years after independence. The principal target is to halve poverty and create general welfare for the entire population. This is to be achieved, partly through economic development and diversification, developing rural areas, and the continued fight against the HIV/Aids epidemic. Increasing women’s integration in development processes is seen as an important part of contributing towards combating poverty.
Vision 2016 is put into operation in the national development plans (NDP). NDP10 applies from April 2009 to March 2015. Botswana has produced a national poverty strategy (NPRS) through its own initiative. Its value mainly consists of focusing on the poverty issue and following up and reporting poverty on a yearly basis.
The areas on which Sweden focuses its support are determined based on a dialogue with Botswana. A new strategy for selective cooperation is being put together. According to the plans, our cooperation will then focus on:
- reducing poverty
- reducing the spread of HIV/Aids
- economic development
- the environment and climate
- democracy and human rights.
Read more about Sida’s work in Botswana
New forms of cooperation
Sweden and Botswana have had large-scale development co-operation since Botswana gained independence. Traditional development aid ceased in 1998. At that time, the country was largely able to develop without outside help.
However, Sweden continues to support Botswana through participant cooperation. Relations are to be built on mutual interests, which in the long term should lead to the relations becoming self-supporting. The purpose of participant cooperation efforts is that they are to be designed so that they contribute to the creation of relations, which, in the long term, can continue without financial support from development cooperation.
