World Bank Ranks Botswana�s Poverty Alongside Zim, Ethiopia, Malawi

Monkagedi Gaothobogwe | Monday February 17, 2014 17:15

 

That list of low income countries in Africa include Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Ethiopia and Benin.

Botswana’s many safety nets and poverty eradication efforts are also being trashed by the World Bank report as serving mainly to enrich the non-poor while serving as little as 3% of the poor in some instances. The World Bank report, compiled by Botswana Institute of Development Policy Analysis (BIDPA) punches holes in Botswana’s safety nets and poverty eradication programmes and offers a substitute programme they believe could solve the many development problems faced by Botswana. The report found that the unemployment rate is very high at 17.8 percent, though if discouraged workers are taken into account, the rate would be closer to 30 percent.  Formal labour market opportunities are very limited, and a large share of adults work in low productivity—low wage jobs (e.g. in agriculture) or are unemployed,.

The report takes a swipe at targeted programmes for the poor such as the Destitute Persons or Ipelegeng, which cover less than 3 percent of the population.  Furthermore, the report lashes out at the safety net programmes describing them as ragmented. “They are implemented by different ministries, diluting scarce administrative capacity”.

The report also finds that the current social assistance spending is skewed in favour of a single programme—scholarships and sponsorship for tertiary students—which absorbs 45 percent of all social assistance spending. The effectiveness of the nutrition programme is in doubt, according to the report which observes that a large number of children suffer from malnutrition and 31.4 percent of them under the age of five exhibit stunted growth. It also observes that a large number of children are not in school, or are behind their expected grade level.

The report also says Botswana’s National HIV/AIDS prevalence among adults was estimated at 23.4 percent in 2011, the second highest rate in the world.  The report also observes that while Botswana has many social protection programmes, some of them are rather small relative to the target group they try to cover which limits their effectiveness. Also not escaping the report’s scathing attack  was contributory pensions, which cover less than 13 percent of the workforce.

The current system relies heavily on in-kind distribution of food, which requires a large budget to be spent on administration and logistics. In addition, the safety net covers only a small fraction of the absolutely poor because of its reliance on programmes targeted at individuals, not families, and lack of a last resort family focused anti-poverty programme.