Assessing poverty alleviation in Botswana in terms of the Copenhagen Declaration

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Botswana is one of the signatories of the Copenhagen Declaration, which waspromulgated in Denmark in 1995. The Declaration, among others, called forsignatories to eradicate poverty through decisive national actions andinternational cooperation as an ethical, social, political and economic imperativeof humankind. This study, which takes the form of a policy systems analysis,seeks to establish the implementation path followed by the Government ofBotswana in its endeavour to bring into effect its commitment to povertyalleviation, using the Copenhagen Declaration as a benchmark. The mainmethodology that informs this study is a comparative literature review of existingdocumentary sources, which include research reports and policy documents.This data is supplemented by interviews with some top officials involved in theplanning, formulation and monitoring of poverty alleviation programmes. Inaddition, the author's experience of working as an Assistant District Officer in theCentral District greatly supplements collected data.After presenting the background to the study and the research methodology thatwas followed, the study discusses the Copenhagen Declaration. It then explainsthe poverty situation at a global level. The picture is then narrowed to sub-Saharan Africa after which a more specific picture of the poverty situation inBotswana is explored.The findings of this study indicate that poverty alleviation policies andprogrammes implemented by the Government of Botswana are in line with therequirements of the Copenhagen Declaration. The most notable limiting factoraffecting proper implementation of the commitments is lack of monitoring andevaluation, hence the study recommends that the Government put in placeproper monitoring and evaluation mechanisms among others.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University