Botswana 80th among Newsweek's 'best countries'

EPHRAIM KEORENG
Staff Writer | Thursday August 26, 2010 00:00

In Africa, Botswana beat South Africa, which got position 82, Ghana (86) and Kenya (87). Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation beat Burkina Faso at 100.

America is at position 11, followed by Germany at 12, whilst France is number 16.

Newsweek, an American news magazine, in its special issue on the study of the world's best countries, focusing on 100 countries in the period 2008 and 2009, looked at the best opportunities provided by countries.

The categories used are health, education, quality of life, economic competitiveness and political environment.Botswana scored highest in education with 73.5 percent and Political Environment,72.6 percent, quality of life, 50.1 percent and 43.7 percent for economic competitiveness.

In a press statement yesterday, a buoyant Jeff Ramsay, said 'in terms of Political Environment, the country scored high in indices measuring respect for basic freedoms and human rights as well as political stability.

The country's metric for political participation, however, was in the middle range, 5 on a scale of 1-10,' he said.He added that Botswana scored lowest in the area of Health, at 34.8, an outcome he said reflected an estimated life expectancy of 49 years.

'It was largely based on UN projections of the continuing impact of HIV/AIDS on public health,' he said.

The government spokesman said in economic competitiveness, areas of relative strength included income and service sector growth, while resource dependency and low innovation metrics were cited as areas of concern.