Botswana will take 23 years to reach three million
Gothataone Moeng | Tuesday December 10, 2013 16:43
As at 2011, the official population count for Botswana is 2,024,904, with non-citizens accounting for 5.5 percent of the population (111,846 people in real terms.)
Statistics Botswana’s Deputy Statistician General Dabilani Buthali said yesterday that at the current rate, and with the prevailing socio-economic, political and environmental conditions, a one million-mark increase would be in 23 years’ time.
Buthali was speaking at the opening of the four-day conference on the dissemination of the 2011 Population and Housing Census.
At the first post-independence census in 1971, the population count stood at just over half a million, steadily increasing to 941,027 in 1981 and finally passing the one million mark in 1991 with a total count of 1,326,796. The population increased to just over 1.6 million in 2001 before reaching the latest two million figure.
Despite the increase in population, the rate at which the population is growing has been steadily declining in the last four decades, with a population growth rate of 4.7 percent in 1981, 3.5 percent in 1991, 2.4 percent in 2001 and 1.9 percent in 2011.
The decline may be a result of dropping fertility rates associated with increasing economic development, increasing female literacy and women’s participation in professional occupations as well as effective family planning methods, another speaker at the conference, Grace Mphetolang said.
Total Fertility Rate (TFR), that is the average number of children that would be born to a woman during her reproductive life, has declined over the last three decades from 6.6 children per woman in 1981, 5.2 children per woman in 1991, 3.2 in 2001 and 2.7 children per woman in 2011.
Final results from the census have also confirmed the rapid urbanisation of the country, with up to 47 villages now being classified as “urban villages,” that is localities with a minimum population of 5,000 and at least 75% of the workforce being engaged in non-agricultural activities.
According to the 2011 census, 64% of the population now live in urban areas, up from 54.2% from 2001.
Dr. Taufila Nyamadzabo, Secretary for Economic and Financial Policy in the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) said the census, which cost at least P116 million, is important in informing the course, direction and pace of development efforts.
“At the international level, there are important development goals, such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which we have committed to achieve as a nation, whilst at a national level, we have important goals to track, such as those in our Vision 2016,” he said.