04 Feb 2019

The country’s governance ranking is expected to be improved and sustained in future.

Presenting the 2019/2020 budget in Parliament yesterday, Minister of Finance and Economic Development Mr Kenneth Matambo said President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi’s roadmap, which was anchored on good governance and respect for the rule of law, was expected to boost the country’s rankings.

He noted that Botswana’s democratic governance, which involved transparency, consultation, accountability, decentralised decision making structures and low level of corruption, had been a critical contributor to the country’s development success.

Minister Matambo said Botswana ranked third best governed country in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2017 according to the Mo Ibrahim Index, which measures quality of governance.

Minister Matambo also talked about the country’s commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2015, which were also consistent with the country’s Vision 2036. He said the SDCs principle of ‘leaving no one behind’ inspired government to continuously adopt inclusive development pathways.

Mr Matambo further explained that one measure for the country’s social development was the Human Development Index developed by the United Nations, which was a summary measure of the long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge and a decent standard of living.

He said measured against this index, Botswana’s Human Development Index rose from 0.565 in the year 2000 to 0.717 in 2017, which was above the average of 0.537 for countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, though still below the average of 0.757 for developed countries.

With regard to inclusive social protection, he said, ‘as part of inclusive development, government will continue to implement social welfare programmes to assist vulnerable persons with services and cushion them from the effects of hardships’.

The current suite of social welfare programmes under implementation include: Old Age Pensioners, World War II Veterans, Destitute Persons, Community Home Based Care patients, People Living with Disabilities, Orphans and Vulnerable Children as well as Supplementary Feeding to primary school children and vulnerable groups at health facilities.

In an effort to improve the efficacy of these social welfare programmes, government will implement National Social Protection Framework.

Adopted in 2017, the framework is an over arching policy document that will consolidate and guide all social protection programmes in Botswana.

On inclusive labour relations, the minister said labour laws were being reviewed to ensure compliance to the ratified International Labour Organisation conventions.

“To date, tripartite arrangement has been put in place to spearhead the review of the laws with the International labour Office technical assistance.

As part of the strategies going forward, the Labour Market Information Management System is expected to be implemented in the financial year 2019/20.
 

This information system collects, analyses, monitors and captures labour market information for policy-making decisions geared towards effective human resource planning and implementation,” he said. Ends