Abstract
This paper considers how the Botswana government could use the experiences of implementing the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to localise their successor Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country’s new development strategy Vision 2036. Despite the recentralisation of some elements of service delivery (water, education, and health) reversing the decentralisation trend, Botswana attained respectable successes in achieving MDG targets. The localisation of development goals must however go beyond simply establishing effective and efficient decentralised local government units, to implementing local economic development strategies that enable communities to take an active role in national development processes. The primary question that this discussion paper seeks to answer is: can Botswana utilise lessons learnt in implementing the MDGs to the SDGs, to foster an empowered local community? The paper highlights how community empowerment is particularly critical in Botswana; on the one hand given the current over-dependence of the economy on a limited number of extractive, finite mineral resources, and on the other because of the multi-dimensional character of poverty and high income inequality afflicting Botswanans. The call for greater decentralisation in Botswana’s Vision 2036 provides a good example for the Commonwealth as it goes beyond the SDGs’ target date of 2030.
 KeywordsBotswana; Millennium Development Goals; Sustainable Development Goals; Vision 2036.
Highlights
Botswana has achieved remarkable socio-economic progress since its attainment of independence in 1966 (World Bank 2014). It moved from the ranks of being one of the poorest countries in the world to upper middle-income status (World Bank 2017) with “annual real GDP growth averaging nine percent a year from 1966 to 2008” (United Nations Development Programme 2010, p. 11) and made significant progress in the attainment of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
This paper argues the need for the deeper involvement of local governments and local communities in formulating and implementing Botswana’s strategic vision, and we look at some of the key challenges identified within the Botswana local government framework
In preparing its new Vision 2036, Botswana, like in so many other African and Commonwealth countries, has brought together policies, strategies and programmes which have been planned by a plethora of fragmented and isolated departments and agencies/field administrations which operate in local government spaces but remain organically linked and accountable to line ministries at the centre
Summary
Botswana has achieved remarkable socio-economic progress since its attainment of independence in 1966 (World Bank 2014). This paper argues the need for the deeper involvement of local governments and local communities in formulating and implementing Botswana’s strategic vision, and we look at some of the key challenges identified within the Botswana local government framework.
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