|
 However, he indicated that this pillar continues to face challenges because there are still children who miss education. Tlale indicated that there are certain communities that have not yet appreciated the importance of education and as a result they do not take their children to school. In the health sector, Tlale believes that HIV/AIDS has impacted negatively on progress made by Botswana. He said the government still has to ensure that people in settlements access health facilities. He said scarcity of settlements add to the problem. He lamented that Botswana still lags behind in the eradication of extreme hunger and poverty. He said the government has to focus on this goal in order to strengthen development. Though poverty eradication is a complex issue, Tlale believes that the improvement of the economy provides the solution to the problem. He argued that for as long as the economy fails to create employment, people would continue to live in poverty. "Employment creation is the vital tool of fighting poverty," he said. Tlale advocated that people in rural areas should have high returns for their farming activities as that is their only source of livelihood. He suggested that the economy should be liberalised in order to uplift the lives of Batswana. "I know it's a debatable issue but individual farmers should be allowed to export their beef to other countries," he said. He suggested that the government should design policies to address problems of vulnerable groups. "Poverty has a woman's face, a lot of female headed households are poverty-stricken," he said. The UNICEF representative to Botswana, Jonathan Gordon Lewis said a lot still has to be done to ensure that by 2015, the child mortality rate in Botswana is reduced by two-thirds. He indicated that from 1991-2001, the infant mortality rate was on the rise, primarily due to the spread of HIV/AIDS. At that time, the PMTCT programme had not become national and as a result, children died before their first birthday. This increased child mortality rates by 17 percent. During the same period, the Central Statistics Office released information that indicated that the mortality rate had increased by 21 percent. "In a country that has a strong public health delivery, trained medical practitioners, one may wonder why they have such a high mortality rate," he wondered. Lewis said the rise could be attributed to the fact that at that time, the government anti- retroviral drugs were not readily available for children who needed them. "But now the situation has changed because the programme has been nationalised and we have services like the Baylor Children's Clinic," he said. He indicated that it would not be easy to achieve the MDG goal in the health sector, as it is a long time programme. Though Botswana is challenged in this area, Lewis pointed out that it has done well in ensuring that there is proper nutrition. "Compared to other countries, Botswana has managed to have children born on proper birth weights," he said. Lewis hailed the attainment of gender parity at schools. He pointed out that the number of boys and girls are almost the same at primary schools. He conceded that there are still children who are deprived of free education because they are torn between going to school and helping their parents in the farms. This is common in rural areas. "The government just have to maintain momentum in this area," he said. An environmentalist at the University of Botswana, Bontle Mbongwe doubts if Botswana would ensure that there is environmental sustainability by 2015 as per the MDGs. She said that Botswana has excellent environmental laws that are not implemented. "The main problem is that we do not have the capacity to implement in terms of human resource. We do not have people with the right skills," he said. She pointed out that the Waste Management Act stipulates the development of regulations with regard to registering hazardous waste collections. She complained that the unit of environmental health does not carry out its mandate. "They do not have people with the right skill to address the issues," she said. Mbongwe said nobody monitors the disposal of hazardous waste. "The management of health care waste is really saddening, nobody monitors how it is disposed and they often use dangerous chemicals to dispose such waste. They just don't have the facilities to dispose them," said Mbongwe. She warned that improper disposal of waste can be harmful to the environment.
|
