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

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,.