Enhancing food access in Africa: The Botswana experience

Abstract

A combination of drought and misguided economic policies have resulted in decreased food security and frequent famines in many African countries in recent years. Botswana is a rare exception that has survived its worst drought without a single death from hunger. It has adopted a National Food Strategy that has both long term and short term policy dimensions. The long term goal is to increase food security through improved agricultural production and diversified rural economy. In the short term the goal is to provide food security to the most vulnerable segment of its population. The two components of the food access program are human supplementary feeding and cash for work. The article examines Botswanas experience in enhancing food security based on an exploratory case study of the public employment program (cash for work) in the South East District of the Republic of Botswana. (authors)