Poverty analysis
Perspectives on economic management in Botswana: jobs and widespread wealth elude even a well managed economy
How are we doing? The people of Botswana rate their development record
Authors:
M. Lekorwe
Publisher:
Afrobarometer, 2009
Botswana is widely regarded as a development success story. Its economy is well managed, and Transparency International considers it to be the least corrupt country in Africa. But do the people of Botswana think likewise? To find out, Afrobarometer recently worked with the University of Botswana to find out how Batswana assess government effectiveness in their country. The findings of this exercise, of which four rounds have been conducted since 1999, are now available.
Face-to-face interviews were conducted in one of two languages (English or Setswana) with a nationally representative probability sample of 1,200 adult Batswana selected from across the country's 26 districts in October 2008. The probability of selection was proportionate to population size based on the most recent 2001 population census result. The final sample size was accurate to within a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points at a confidence level of 95 percent.
The respondents were first asked to identify the country’s three most important development priorities. They then evaluated the government’s performance on the priority issues.
On development priorities, the survey found that:
- while the country’s economic performance was appreciated overall, approximately 64 percent of respondents identified unemployment as a major problem area
- 40 percent of respondents identified poverty and destitution as the second most important problem facing the country, up from just 17 percent in 1999
- for the first time, problems in the farming and the agricultural sector were identified as one of the top three problems facing the country, replacing HIV and AIDS which had featured in previous rounds of the survey
On perceptions of government effectiveness:
- 76 percent of respondents rated the government’s performance favourably overall, up from just 60 percent in 2003
- 67 percent and 87 percent of respondents felt it had to do more on issues of unemployment and inflation, respectively
- 64 percent of respondents felt that the government was not doing enough to narrow the gap between the rich and the poor, an issue that has featured consistently in each round of the survey conducted so far
