Publication: Botswana: Systematic Country Diagnostic
Loading...
Published
2015-03
ISSN
Date
2015-11-20
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
Botswana has been one of the worlds fastest growing economies over the past 50 years, allowing the country to move from being among the poorest to upper middle income status - this has had the effect of pulling the majority of the population out of poverty. While Botswana is rightly praised for its management of resource wealth, it is apparent that the high levels of investment by government (in health, education, and infrastructure) are not delivering quality outcomes, making it increasingly difficult to meet the objectives of growth, diversification, and poverty elimination. Indeed, some of the foundations which drove the development success of Botswana over the past half century are being eroded or face risks. In this context, this systematic country diagnostic (SCD) is intended to assess the priorities for Botswana to make rapid progress in achieving the objectives of: (i) elimination of extreme poverty on a sustainable basis; and (ii) ensuring shared prosperity by improving the welfare of the less-well-off in the country. It includes individual chapters analyzing the opportunities and challenges to meeting these objectives with respect to: growth; inclusiveness; and sustainability. The SCD concludes with a prioritization of the key challenges.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“World Bank Group. 2015. Botswana: Systematic Country Diagnostic. Systematic Country Diagnostic;. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/23103 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication An Assessment of the Investment Climate in Botswana : Volume I, Main Report(Washington, DC, 2007-06)The objective of the Botswana Investment Climate Assessment (ICA) is to evaluate the investment climate in Botswana in all its operational dimensions and promote policies to strengthen the private sector. The investment climate is made up of the many location specific factors that shape the opportunities and incentives for firms to invest productively, create jobs, and expand. These factors include macroeconomic and regulatory policies; the security of property rights and the rule of law; and the quality of supporting institutions such as physical and financial infrastructure. The main sources of information for the ICA are two firm-level surveys. The first survey covered Small, Medium, and Large Enterprises (SMLEs) with five or more employees in retail trade, manufacturing, and other services. The second covered micro enterprise with fewer than five employees in the same sectors. Information from the survey is supplemented with information from other sources, including the doing business report; analytical reports by the World Bank, the international monetary fund, other international organizations and the Government of Botswana; and academic papers and reports. Although the analysis in this report suggests that there are some areas where the investment climate might be improved, it is important to note none of these problems with the possible exception of worker skills appear to be particularly debilitating. This suggests that other factors are probably also playing a role. One such factor is likely to be the small size (in terms of population) and remoteness of the economy. Another factor is the effect that is the macroeconomic effects of the large mining economy has on the competitiveness of the rest of the economy. Improving living standards and cutting poverty depends on broad-based economic growth, which will only take place when firms improve worker productivity by investing in human and physical capital and technological capacity. But firms will only invest when the investment climate is favorable.Publication World Bank Group and World Bank Corporate Scorecards, October 2015(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2015-10)In July 2013, the World Bank Group launched its Strategy, outlining how it will partner more effectively with clients to help them achieve the ambitious goals of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity through economic growth, inclusion, sustainability and resilience. In April 2014, the World Bank Group Corporate Scorecard was launched for the first time and the World Bank Scorecard revised to monitor the implementation of the strategy. The World Bank Group Scorecard provides view of the results and performance indicators of the three World Bank Group institutions: the World Bank (WB), the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA). This brochure presents the scorecards, updated with the latest data available in fiscal year 2015. The scorecards are structured in three tiers. A tier one and two presents indicators monitoring aspects of growth, inclusiveness, and sustainability and resilience. Tier three captures the progress in implementing the World Bank Group strategy and includes measures of both operational and organizational effectiveness.Publication World Bank Group and World Bank Corporate Scorecards, October 2014(Washington, DC, 2014-10)The 2014 World Bank Group Corporate Scorecard for the fall Annual Meetings is designed to provide a high-level and strategic overview of the World Bank Group's performance toward achieving the two goals. It is the apex from which indicators cascade into the monitoring frameworks of the three World Bank Group institutions. The Scorecard is structured in three tiers: 1) The Goals and Development Context tier provides an overview of progress on key development challenges faced by World Bank Group client countries; 2) The Results tier reports on the key sectoral and multi-sectoral results achieved by World Bank Group clients with support of World Bank Group operations in pursuit of the goals; and 3) The Performance tier captures World Bank Group performance in implementation of the World Bank Group Strategy and includes measures of both operational and organizational effectiveness. These three tiers are the components of a unified results and performance monitoring framework with indicators grouped along the result chain as follows: the Scorecard monitors, at an aggregate level, how the World Bank Group implements its Strategy and improves its performance (Tier III) in order to support clients in achieving results (Tier II) in the context of global development progress (Tier I). The indicators in the first two tiers are grouped into three categories encompassing growth, inclusiveness, and sustainability/resilience. The World Bank Group Strategy recognizes the importance of each of these three areas for the achievement of the two goals. Economic growth that creates good jobs requires action to strengthen both the private and public sectors. Inclusion entails empowering all citizens to participate in, and benefit from, the development process and removing barriers against those who are often excluded. Sustainability ensures that today?s development progress is not reversed tomorrow; it implies securing the long-term future of the planet and its resources, ensuring social inclusion, and limiting the economic burdens on future generations. Recognizing the importance the World Bank Group Strategy places on fragility and gender, Scorecard indicators are disaggregated by gender and fragile and conflict-affected situations when feasible.Publication World Bank Corporate Scorecard, April 2014(Washington, DC, 2014-04)The World Bank Group Corporate Scorecard is designed to provide a high-level and strategic overview of the World Bank Group s performance toward achieving the two goals. It is the apex from which indicators cascade into the monitoring frameworks of the three World Bank Group institutions. The Scorecard is structured into three tiers. These three tiers are the components of a unified results and performance monitoring framework with indicators grouped along the result chain as follows: the Scorecard monitors, at an aggregate level, how the World Bank Group implements its Strategy and improves its performance (Tier III) in order to support clients in achieving results (Tier II) in the context of global development progress (Tier I).Publication Country Social Analysis : Ethnicity and Development in Vietnam - Summary report(World Bank, 2009-01-01)This report " Country Social Analysis (CSA) " focused on ethnicity and development in Vietnam is a provocative analysis of marginality in contemporary Southeast Asia. It seeks to understand the macro social and political processes, and provides an analysis of how social, political, and cultural factors influence the opportunities and constraints to more equitable, inclusive development. This study provides research findings to support both the Bank's and the government of Vietnam's goals of social inclusion for ethnic minorities and poverty reduction. Previous studies, including the Bank's Country Partnership Study for Vietnam (CPS) and the government's Socioeconomic Development Plan (SEDP), focus on four organizing principles: (1) improving the business environment; (2) strengthening social inclusion; (3) strengthening natural resource and environmental management; and (4) improving governance. This study focuses particularly on the issue of strengthening social inclusion. Part one of this summary report is a literature review that discusses background information on ethnic minorities, including their classification, history, current living conditions, and poverty outcomes. Part two presents the results of field-based research and provides in-depth analysis of six fundamental factors that explain how differences between ethnic groups contribute to remarkably different livelihood strategies and economic outcomes. Part three summarizes the policy implications of research findings, suggesting areas for further consideration.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
Publication Breaking the Conflict Trap : Civil War and Development Policy(Washington, DC: World Bank and Oxford University Press, 2003)Most wars are now civil wars. Even though international wars attract enormous global attention, they have become infrequent and brief. Civil wars usually attract less attention, but they have become increasingly common and typically go on for years. This report argues that civil war is now an important issue for development. War retards development, but conversely, development retards war. This double causation gives rise to virtuous and vicious circles. Where development succeeds, countries become progressively safer from violent conflict, making subsequent development easier. Where development fails, countries are at high risk of becoming caught in a conflict trap in which war wrecks the economy and increases the risk of further war. The global incidence of civil war is high because the international community has done little to avert it. Inertia is rooted in two beliefs: that we can safely 'let them fight it out among themselves' and that 'nothing can be done' because civil war is driven by ancestral ethnic and religious hatreds. The purpose of this report is to challenge these beliefs.Publication Governance Matters IV : Governance Indicators for 1996-2004(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2005-06)The authors present the latest update of their aggregate governance indicators, together with new analysis of several issues related to the use of these measures. The governance indicators measure the following six dimensions of governance: (1) voice and accountability; (2) political instability and violence; (3) government effectiveness; (4) regulatory quality; (5) rule of law, and (6) control of corruption. They cover 209 countries and territories for 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, and 2004. They are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 37 separate data sources constructed by 31 organizations. The authors present estimates of the six dimensions of governance for each period, as well as margins of error capturing the range of likely values for each country. These margins of error are not unique to perceptions-based measures of governance, but are an important feature of all efforts to measure governance, including objective indicators. In fact, the authors give examples of how individual objective measures provide an incomplete picture of even the quite particular dimensions of governance that they are intended to measure. The authors also analyze in detail changes over time in their estimates of governance; provide a framework for assessing the statistical significance of changes in governance; and suggest a simple rule of thumb for identifying statistically significant changes in country governance over time. The ability to identify significant changes in governance over time is much higher for aggregate indicators than for any individual indicator. While the authors find that the quality of governance in a number of countries has changed significantly (in both directions), they also provide evidence suggesting that there are no trends, for better or worse, in global averages of governance. Finally, they interpret the strong observed correlation between income and governance, and argue against recent efforts to apply a discount to governance performance in low-income countries.Publication Governance Matters VIII : Aggregate and Individual Governance Indicators 1996–2008(2009-06-01)This paper reports on the 2009 update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2008: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. These aggregate indicators are based on hundreds of specific and disaggregated individual variables measuring various dimensions of governance, taken from 35 data sources provided by 33 different organizations. The data reflect the views on governance of public sector, private sector and NGO experts, as well as thousands of citizen and firm survey respondents worldwide. The authors also explicitly report the margins of error accompanying each country estimate. These reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance using any kind of data. They find that even after taking margins of error into account, the WGI permit meaningful cross-country comparisons as well as monitoring progress over time. The aggregate indicators, together with the disaggregated underlying indicators, are available at www.govindicators.org.Publication Design Thinking for Social Innovation(2010-07)Designers have traditionally focused on enchancing the look and functionality of products.Publication Government Matters III : Governance Indicators for 1996-2002(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2003-08)The authors present estimates of six dimensions of governance covering 199 countries and territories for four time periods: 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2002. These indicators are based on several hundred individual variables measuring perceptions of governance, drawn from 25 separate data sources constructed by 18 different organizations. The authors assign these individual measures of governance to categories capturing key dimensions of governance and use an unobserved components model to construct six aggregate governance indicators in each of the four periods. They present the point estimates of the dimensions of governance as well as the margins of errors for each country for the four periods. The governance indicators reported here are an update and expansion of previous research work on indicators initiated in 1998 (Kaufmann, Kraay, and Zoido-Lobat 1999a,b and 2002). The authors also address various methodological issues, including the interpretation and use of the data given the estimated margins of errors.