Pula: Botswana Journal of African Studies voI.17(2003) no.2
Prospects for Technology as Insurance against Poverty
in Botswana's Poor
Sebusang E.M. Sebusang
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Botswana
email: sebusang@mopipLub.bw
Abstract
In this paper it is argued that judged on a global scale, Botswana does not seem to have
achieved a great deal in technology. This has meant that technology has had very little
impact on the rural poor. Therefore if we accept that technology is an important
component of economic development, the rural areas have had little economic growth
in the form of technology. The paper nonetheless acknowledges that whilst Botswana
comes across as a technology         non-achiever    globally, it possesses       the requisite
infrastructure (such as telecommunications      main lines that are 100% digital) to make
technology work for her populace. The paper further advocates massive investment in
training in science and technology, research and development to generate the critical
mass of skilled researchers upon whom Botswana        s technology-led development can be
anchored. However any investment in building a human resource capacity that can
support and maintain science and technological needs should be coupled to a strong
desire to make use of the outcomes of research.
Introduction
Many surveys (Labelle 2002, UNDP HDR 2001, SARlMA 2002) report evidence that
appropriate technologies, including information and communication technologies (ICTs),
can be harnessed by the poor to sustain themselves. According to Labelle, lCTs can also
help attack ignorance and illiteracy that are regarded as "the outriders of poverty and
disenfranchisement." From the available literature it is reasonable to propose that
leveraging technology to alleviate or even eliminate poverty is no longer an open question.
The only question that remains relates to the context and circumstances under which
technology is able to do this. For this paper, it is necessary to define the concepts and
ideas embodied in the topic. The word technology is herein given a much wider meaning
than the usual one of mechanical art and applied sciences. Technology therefore includes
all processes that are an improvement on the norm. Poverty on the other hand is
understood to mean a want of necessities of life including food, shelter, hope,
employment, health and dignity. The causes of poverty are invariably multivariable,
spanning drought, unemployment, decline in agricultural producer prices, high fertility,
attitudes, policy failures and many others.
         The Botswana situation can best be understood by providing a poverty map. The
map will help explain the causes of poverty as well as give pointers as to how best to
apply technology in order to ensure that Botswana's poor emerge out of poverty. This is
the major focus of our paper and it derives its legitimacy from Botswana's declared
vision (Vision 2016) of, "a prosperous, productive and innovative nation." The orthodox
thought is that prosperity (meaning lack of poverty), productivity and innovation are
products of the application of technology (UNDP, HDR 2001), meaning that Botswana
requires technology as a tool to facilitate the realisation of its national vision.
                                              41


 Poverty and Technology Achievement Index                    ..     ','
 There are global indicators that place a country's posItion vis-a-vIs poverty and/or
 prosperity. Amongst the more commonly used ones are the development indices that
 the UNDP publishes annually, Human Development Index (HDI), Gender-related
 Development Index (GDI) and Human Poverty Index (HPI). Another index which is of
 particular interest to this paper is called the Technology Achievement In~ex .(TAI):
         The HDI measures the overall achievements in a country in three basIc dimensIOns
 of human development - longevity, knowledge and a decent standard of living.
 Conversely, the HPI reflects the distribution of progress and measures the backlog of
 deprivations that still exists. Using the same dimensions and indicators as the HDI, the
 GDI captures inequalities in achievement between women and men, with a lower index
 indicating lack of gender equity. The TAl, introduced since 2001, "aims to compute
 how well a country is creating and diffusing technology and building a human skill base
 - reflecting capacity to participate in the technological innovations of the network age."
 (UNDP HDR 2001). The components of the index are four in number:
           i)        Creation of technology which is decomposed into the number of
                    patents granted per capita (to reflect the level of invention activity)
                    and receipts of royalty and license fees from abroad per capita
                    (reflecting market value of past innovations).
           ii)      Diffusion of recent innovations measured by the diffusion of the
                    Internet and by exports of high- and medium-technology products as
                    a percentage of all exports.
           iii)     Diffusion of old innovations in the form of telephones and electricity.
           iv)      Human skills reflected by the mean years of schooling and gross
                    enrolment ratio (GER) of tertiary students enrolled in science,
                    mathematics and engineering. (It is likely that vocational training will
                    be incorporated in future).
 Gauged against the standards set by the TAl, Botswana, with no discernible patents nor
 high-value manufactures, is struggling to be competitive. However if one were just to
assess Botswana's efforts and achievements to date, a different picture from that painted
by the TAl would perhaps emerge.
Botswana's Technology Scorecard
 The Global (TAl) Perspectives The 2001 UNDP HDR has five categories or ranks of
countries in terms of their TAl as follows; Leaders (meaning 18 of the OECD countries' ),
potential leaders (amongst them Costa Rica at position 36), followed by dynamic adopters
(such as South Africa, position 39 with an index of 0.340, and Zimbabwe at 59), the
fourth being marginalised (including Ghana at 67 and Mozambique at 72), and finally
others. Botswana is in the final grouping of countries whose TAl could not be evaluated
for lack of information. The report further indicates that Botswana had only I patent
granted by 1998per I million residents pointing to a truly unattractive picture as indicated
earlier. Although the latest estimates from SARIMA indicate that at least one patent
came out of Botswana annually over the last 6 years, they equally concede that only one
patent has been turned into a product which might explain the UNDP statistics of just
one patent. If Botswana wishes to achieve more in technology it needs to work on
turning more of its patents into products, in addition to maintaining or increasing the
rate of production of patents in the first place.
        In general, Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), Botswana included, has not fared very
well in world trade over the last 20 years. Figures from UNCTAD indicate that whereas
                                              42


SSA had 2.5% and 2.1 % of world exports and imports respectively in 1980, by 1999 the
situation had worsened to 0.9% and 1.0% (UNCTAD 2001). The Botswana government
statistics are clearly in support of under-achievement                          in technology in that primary
commodities still constitute more than 80% (by value) of the country's exports.
             In 1998 Botswana's overall expenditure in science and technology (S&T) was
guesstimated at less than I % of GDP (S&T Policy 1998) compared to the industrialised
countries norm of between 2 and 3%. A recent estimate of Botswana government
expenditure on research and development (R&D) (through the various government
parastatal organisations) was given as a more definite figure of 0.12% ofGDP (SARIMA
2002). This shows it is still far short ofthe necessary 2-plus percent ofOECD countries
ifR&D must bear economic fruits for the country. There must be at least a twenty-fold
increase in investment in R&D for Botswana to just get into the door for innovation in
science and technology. The SARIMA document further reports that there are only nine
research scientists and engineers per ten thousand people (0.09%) in the workforce.
This is further affirmation, if any was needed, of the glaring technical skills shortage in
the economy.
          Perhaps couching Botswana's technology in indices is a little impervious and
hence bound to be somewhat misleading. Table I below gives a snapshot of both the
positive and negative achievements that Botswana currently has on a global scale.
                                 Table 1: Botswana Technology Scorecard
                                                                                  Negative
                                                            Traliti<nJlliilities (electricity ani telqbn:s)
                                                            are Irt tlm diffu;ed
         Cellular ted1mIogyhas expnUxi                      Tedrology reitlu occessiblerrr affcrdable
         teled;n;i
          ~~                    literncy(iITp"lJ\e)          lnfmmtirn ani Ccmrunicatirn Tedrology
         tedroI         use                                         Irt            \e in all \\e 00
          lOO'lodigital rmin telecmmmicatim;                N> mpemrtatirn oftre S&TPolicyof1998"
          liresi
          A Scienx ani Ta::lmlogy (S&1) Policy
          ISID
          F.xisten:e of a IIIlliu of ted1mIogy
                      m;
          A rnti<nJl uni\-crSity \\ith fOCultiesof          la:k ofhighlytraiml ci1i2en researdus
          5rienx ani engireering ani tedmlogy
  i~          is ere of a \{2)' fuwoo.Dries mth this ~tyin      th: w:rld
  n TIue is in pace sin:e Miy 2002, a NII:i<ml Qnrris;ioo fir Sci= arrl Twmogy ta<sked mth g!Ji~ th:
  inpem:ntatioo ofth: S&TPoIicy arrl ~              CiMnJrmJt 00 S&T IIllltas
                                                           43


        Table 1, though only a snapshot, says a lot about Botswana's prep~redness to
begin to exploit technology for development. ~he.existence ofth~ S&T ~oh~y. coupl~d
with the massive investment in a telecommumcatlOns network with 100 Yo digital malll
lines are very positive starting points towards a higher TAL However .f~r Botswana to
fully utilise the already existing technology for the benefit of the poor, It.ISnecessary to
implement the S&T Policy in such a way that technology beco~e.s acces~lbl~, affordable
and appropriate, meaning the user can find tangible benefits III Its applicatIOn, (UNDP
HDR200l).
        Whilst this paper advocates a technology-mediated poverty alleviation process
for Botswana, it does not regard technology as an end in itself, but rather as a prop that
a nation leverages the livelihoods of its peoples upon. Technology is therefore never a
panacea to deprivation. Its utility is purely in the mobilisation of human will to do
better, exploiting the tools that technology avails. In order to achieve these as well as
adapt technology to the needs of Botswana, there is also a need to restructure and refocuss
some of the public research establishments. The limited capacities in the many such
institutions makes it imperative that they should join forces and invest their financial
and intellectual resources in pursuing nationally set research agendas.
Local Perspectives: Botswana's Engagement in Science and Technology Although
the Botswana technology situation is not ideal, it is not all doom and gloom. There is
on-going rationalisation of government S&T institutions such as the combination of the
Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) with the Department of Weights and Measures
of the Ministry of Trade, Industry, Wildlife and Tourism. An Industrial Development
 Policy though not specifically targeting the poor, is in place and can and must in fact be
adapted to at least have some identifiable focus on rural industrialisation to address
poverty. The centralised photovoltaic (PV) power station commissioned by the Botswana
 Technology Centre (BOTEC) in Motshegaletau village is a commendable effort of
 applying available technology to bring services to rural areas. These services are
 prerequisites to a sustainable program of fighting poverty. The Rural Industries Promotion
 Company (Botswana), RIPCO (B), through its subsidiary Rural Industries Innovation
 Centre (RIIC), has trained and equipped many rural area dwellers with artisan skills
 such as blacksmithing, tanning and baking. All these have been positive skills transfer
 schemes to the rural communities that have given trainees self-employment skills and
 some the impetus to set up businesses that now employ more than just the sponsors. The
only complaint with these schemes might be over scale - there are too few people
benefiting from them. RIIC has equally developed agricultural implements targeted at
small-scale farmers, hence lessening labour demands for farming. Some of these are
ploughs, single and double row planters, cultivators, mills, threshers and chuff cutters.
One could not be faulted in assuming that these implements should be having positive
poverty-reducing impact.
         The recently launched UNDP Human Development Report for the year 2002
(UNDP HDR 2002) records Botswana's poverty situation as worsening, which therefore
is an indication that even with the engagement in S&T just summarised above, their
impact has not been deep and far-reaching enough. So what could be the problem? The
paper suggests Botswana must exorcise the three demons of policy failure, (technical)
ignorance and mindsets if she should have technology as a partner for development.
Policy Level Issues
 Water Water is the basis of good health. Easy access to water has the net effect of
releasing the productive energies ofa majority of the rural people to be applied in areas
                                              44


other than on fetching it. Water reticulation and access is one area in which the
government has moved commendably as far as human consumption is concerned. The
biggest omission is where production/commercial requirements are concerned. For the
rural farmer (read rural poor), if extension services were both technically equipping as
well as water having been availed for irrigation, the majority, which is food-poor, would
have graduated out of this deprivation.
Agriculture The continued neglect of agriculture has resulted in the sector that
contributed 42.7% to the GDP in 1966 (NDP8) now contributing less than 4% in 2002.
As indicated in the study by BIDPA in 1997 the number and proportion of people living
in poverty (estimated as 62% for poor and very poor) was substantially higher in rural
areas (BIDPA 1997). A more recent statistic quoted in the Agricultural Master Plan for
Agriculture and Dairy Development (NAMPAADD 2002) states that 50% of Botswana's
population still lives in the rural areas and of these 50% are engaged in (subsistence)
agriculture. The marked decline in agricultural contribution to the national cake has
therefore very profound implications and effects on the rural poor. The agricultural
sector, which is their economic, social and cultural capital, has stagnated and has generally
had the undesired effect of sidelining the rural poor in the affairs of the nation. The
situation does not look like improving for the most ofthem, since the newer government
focus in the form ofNAMPAADD will regard their estates as too small for meaningful
commercialisation. This group may neither have the sophistication nor the inclination
to form syndicates advocated by the policy document to bring their collective holdings
to the minimum 150 hectares. Hence the sector of society with any hope of tapping into
NAMPAADD will be people with holdings of ISOhectares and above, not the two to
ten hectare plot that most rural farmers possess. Therefore only the former group, who
may not necessarily be resource-poor will stand to attract government assistance in the
new arable and dairy development emphasis of the program.
          The new agricultural policy seems to be a concession by government that
previous policies failed to adequately educate farmers on proper and best animal
husbandry practices, tillage systems, application of fertilisers and the choice of economic
crops. The end-result is that because most rural people have remained food-poor, and
therefore less likely to be receptive to change (technological and otherwise), the country
has missed creating a socio-economic dynamism in rural Botswana. This dynamic would
have resulted in more usage of technology and improved standards of living through
more employment, higher returns and meaningful engagements, which are dignity-
restoring processes. For had government seen the value of a technology /research driven
agricultural sector, farm inputs (e.g. irrigation schemes, farm machinery, better seeds,
farm management systems) would have been extended to the communities rather than
the deployment of half-interested extension officers and Namola Leuba4 handouts. The
latter scheme which has proven an economic drain and hence not at all sustainable, has
had the additional effect of pulling labour away from agriculture (BIDPA 1997), which
has completely demotivated farming communities. A related contributory fact to the
poor state of agriculture is the lack of technology at village level, meaning even a farmer
who thought of changing to a more technological operation had nowhere and no one to
assist and motivate them further along that route.
Brigades The brigades movement of the 60s and 70s came about as an answer to two
problems as they then existed: lack of training opportunities for young school dropouts
(and out of school youth and adults), but the more important reason being the inadequacy
of technical/artisan skills in the economy, more so in the rural areas. Brigades thus
                                              45


   sprouted all over rural Botswana as answers to loc~l skills nee~s, where they trained
  people in carpentry, building and construction, weldmg an~ fabncatlOn, dress makl~g,
  horticulture, apiary, auto-mechanics and latterly TV productIOn,computer programml~g
  as well as TV and computer repairs. The skills imparted to the trainees formed the b~SlS
  for the growth and development of a vibrant small, medium and micro enterpnses
  (SMME) sector in rural Botswana principally focussing on import substitution. The
  unfortunate reality of the Botswana situation is that brigades have been allowed to lose
  focus and instead become academic-inclined units with no differentiation between the
  different centres, though they are meant to service the needs of dissimilar localities.
  Had the brigades remained true to their original mandate and intent, regional variation
  would be evident, emphasising the comparative needs and advantages offered by the
  differing local cultures and natural resources, as well as the peculiar developmental
  needs of any given area.
          The results of this new development has been that the rural populace has remained
  information-starved, with no technical skills to sell to those enterprising few who may
  otherwise have exploited opportunities such as the Local Procurement Program (LPP),
 EU/ACP,AGOA and other concessionary trade arrangements availed to most developing
 countries.
 Illiteracy and Ignorance The unintended outcome of this new focus for brigades has
 been technical illiteracy of rural communities. Even government literacy programs such
 as offered by the Department of Non-formal Education are not functional in nature _
 the acquired skills are not productivity enhancing. For literacy programs to be meaningful,
 they must impart skills (geared towards lessening the burden of existence for the
 communities) to the learners through structured programming with set, measurable goals.
 These skills must invariably lead to higher productivity from the individual learners. If
 these programs are not tied to the dominant economic activity for the learners _ a good
 example being the Farmers School in Kenya where literacy is tied to improved farming
 techniques, so that graduates of the program (mostly women) become increasingly better
 producers - then the program must be regarded as a failure. Non-traditional students
 who are not given education with a (practical) purpose, or more commonly referred to
 as Education with Production (EwP), will invariably fall back into illiteracy at the end
of their studies. Combining non-formal education with skills training would have laid
the foundations for further quest for learning that is sadly lacking in the current program.
Access to Utilities In the context of agriculture, the telephone diffusion will herald a
breakthrough technological innovation for rural communities since it will link
farmers with information generators in the form of government, universities and
researchers. These resources could equally be exploited by extension officers to both
update their knowledge as well as for transmitting appropriate information to the
communities they serve. The fact that Botswana still has less than 20% teledensity
(land lines)5 means that the rural poor remain excluded from the information age.
Electricity Similarly the lack of access to electricity for most Batswana, but more critically
for those living in the countryside, means they lack devices such as television that could
bring knowledge to them in an impactful graphical form. As is universally acknowledged,
that which you see (a picture) is many times better understood and retained in the brain
longer than what you hear (radio is the major source of information for the rural areas).
Because lack of electricity translates into lack of opportunities for influencing decision
                                              46


making for the communities, they will remain unempowered and not a factor in
governance. Since this scenario does not enhance a sense of self-worth in the rural poor,
the fight against poverty is rendered that much more difficult.
         The fact that Botswana has achieved little in technology, as indicated earlier,
requires that both old and new technologies such as the internet be diffused. The lack of
diffusion has meant that a large proportion of the population is information-starved and
will continue in that state of ignorance, deprived of a vehicle for gaining self-worth,
needed to kick-start the process of getting out of poverty. After all, to be able to utilise
technology in a beneficial manner, it must first be accessible. Accessibility is enhanced
by the availability of information, from which knowledge is built.
Societal Mindsets To address the question of attitudes and orientation of a society to its
poor members, let us start with a question. What are the attitudes of Botswana society to
the poor? Are they viewed as a problem or as a resource? The story of Muhammad
Yunus and the Grameen Bank6 is a shining testimony to the human will and the ability
to fight one's way out of poverty if only given some dignity in the process. Yunus' view
is that (Muhammad Yunus, 1997) "poverty is not created by the poor people. Poverty is
created by the institutions that we have built around us. I think it's a responsibility of all
societies to insure human dignity to every member of that society. And I don't think we
have done very well on that part. We talk about human rights, but we don't link human
rights with poverty. If you look at it in a different way, poverty is a denial of all human
rights." The Botswana government choice of some of its programs, e.g. drought relief,
is not only unsustainable; it is premised on the recipients getting handouts since they
are incapable of helping themselves. A more sustainable and dignified process would
involve programs/projects that can be continued even after government withdraws her
temporary assistance. Most drought relief projects do not fall in this category (BIDPA
poverty study 1997). The net effect of this approach is to dehumanise recipients making
them less likely to get out of the cycle of poverty, generation after generation.
         Another manifestation of the wrong attitudes or orientation that fail to connect
with the poor (or at least the illiterate who customarily constitute the majority of the
poor) is the language of communication. The national television (BTV) is replete with
examples of Ministers opening major developmental projects in villages and yet
addressing the gatherings in English, a language that the majority are hardly competent
in. Ministers and other senior government officials are not the only ones inflicting this
malaise, even the State President is known to address Kgotla meetings half in English
or starting out in Setswana but then drifting uncontrollably into English during the
process. Surely if government cannot communicate in an appropriate and locally relevant
language to the illiterate, it will fail to dent/address the abhorrent poverty in the nation.
Making Technology Work for Botswana's Poor
Policy Interventions Working from the premise that poverty is not created by the poor
people but by the institutions built around them, one then has to look at the institutional
measures necessary to address rural poverty. Since the majority of the poor are in the
rural areas, and the major economic activity there is agriculture, the institutional changes
must impact on this sector. What is on offer? The government is in the process oflaunch-
ing an agricultural master plan (a product of a consultancy given an Israeli consortium)
called National Master Plan for Arable Agriculture and Dairy Development
(NAMPAADD). This endeavour, though commendable, will not address rural poverty,
since its beneficiaries will be almost exclusively people who are at the moment not that
                                               47


  affected by poverty - these are people who are by rural standards, large land owners
  (150 hectares plus), and was not meant to address poverty per se but agricultural pro-
  duction. Policy interventions must refocus on smallholder agriculture if they are to be
  poverty reducing. This can be done in parallel with NAMPAADD by availing ta~g~ted
  assistance to farmers in the form of information, infrastructure (roads, water for Imga-
  tion) and a marketing service for the produce - through what the policy refers to as a
  "socially oriented approach".
            To enhance this policy intervention process, an ICT strategy must be put in
  place and a specific chapter on agriculture with a model that will connect extension
  services with the Department of Agricultural          Research, Ministry of Agriculture,
  Botswana College of Agriculture (BCA), Botswana Agricultural Union and markets
  and pricing models for produce for the ultimate benefit of the farmers. A process along
 these lines will begin to address the pervasive poverty in the rural areas.
            Utilities especially electricity and telephones must be deployed with reduced
  costs of usage. These could include local dial-up services of the internet (information
  store) and if needs be these can be subsidised to improve access. To reduce costs of
  setting up by the internet service providers (ISPs), a wireless technology route should
 be taken and enhanced. The Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) is already
 using a radio frequency technology termed "Wireless Fast Connect" to reduce its waiting
 list for connections and spread even in sparsely populated rural areas. To encourage
 take-up by potential users: fast deployment           and activation must be guaranteed.
 Botswana's 100% digital main telecommunications          lines should provide the necessary
 backbone to provide fast and reliable information to users and in a language they
 understand. The latter point means therefore that the Internet pages with .bw domain
 names must increasingly have local content in local languages. Local content is key.
 Lisham Adam (Connectivity Project Office at the UN Economic Commission for Africa,
 as quoted in article by Gumisano Mutume, Africa Development: More than just Internet
 Connections Required, IPS June 24 1997) warn most developers/commentators              about
 the content and uni-directional flow of information and whether the Internet is "really
 going to serve the poor rural communities."          Another proven method of bringing
 technology (internet) to the remotest of villages is through collective ownership of ICT
 resources, including pooled resources like public phones, cellular phones, (free)
 community information centres acting as digital libraries and internet points (Mike Jensen
 2002). More ofthese need to be piloted in this country if we are not to import the large
 have and have-nots divide into a digital divide between the urban and rural communities;
the minority elite and the majority poor.
            Another policy intervention, and one that in its implementation would be very
radical indeed, must be a govemment-led technology transfer mission. The axis of this
 should be from town and city to the village; and from village to the lands and farms in
 addition to the traditional North-South one. For this virtuous situation to be realised, the
country must take a deliberate policy stand that none of its raw materials (or very little)
will be exported unprocessed. A gradual process could be put in place, say over five
years to achieve this mission. This would not only have the effect of more people
becoming technology-savvy as they do the processing, but additionally more will be
employed in the processing industries, thus further denting unemployment which is one
of the primary causes of poverty. Since processing involves the use of technology, the
country's utilisation of technology will be expanded. This will in turn increase the TAl
(exporting manufactures as opposed to commodities) (UNCTAD 2001), which would
be confirmation enough that the baseline human development index for Botswana is on
the increase.
                                               48


Relevant Content Local content in the context of the internet is equally true of
communicating in fora where we interact with the public. The tendency to speak a
language not understood by the audience must be fought and ended if Botswana is to
begin to impact positively on her information-starved and food-poor communities. By
giving people a sense of self-worth or dignifying their existence (the feeling "I matter"),
they will in turn reciprocate by picking themselves out of the worst deprivation - a sure
way of beating poverty in the longer term.
        Whilst all the above are critical to exploiting technology in the fight against
poverty, for this process to be sustainable, Botswana must begin to be a generator of
knowledge in the form of patents and high-value technological products. Hence
implementation ofthe consultancy report (New Zealand Consortium 2000) on the S&T
Policy of 1998 must be speeded up. The reorganisation of government S&T institutions
must be finalised as a matter of urgency and their productivity and effectiveness measured
against the world trends. All this calls for increased S&T personnel, thus making it
imperative that more school leavers must be incentivised to follow a science and
technology career. It will no longer be enough to have 6% or so of tertiary students
following S&T. The numbers must double and even triple for there to be meaningful
and sustained results.
Investment in Research and Development Personnel Above all else, the country must
embark on a massive and highly focused program of training research scientists, engineers
and technologists necessary for the country to begin to generate intellectual capital in
the form of patents, as well as improving the skills base for the commercialisation of
these patents and innovation into high-value products.
Conclusions
Unless Botswana invests more in research and development (R&D), human capital and
technology development, it cannot (and should not) expect to reap the associated
economic and social benefits. But to begin to address rural poverty, Botswana must set
in place processes that will ensure that the rural communities have access to technological
innovations, which must be affordable and flighted to them by in-tune extension officers
in a non-paternalistic manner. If the declared vision of a prosperous and productive
nation is to become true - the poor majority must graduate out of that status. This requires
policy interventions that are poor-friendly and which give dignity and a sense of self-
worth to the recipients. Botswana certainly as a country has huge potential to graduate
from being populated by a largely poor rural population, if she could aggressively exploit
the excellent telecommunication infrastructure to bring knowledge to the remotest of
settlements. The country must build on this to improve on her very small score on
technology achievement.
                                                Notes
# An earlier version of this paper was presented at the seminar on "Making technologies work for
poor people" organised by the UNDP and the Department of Economics, University of Botswana,
October 17th 200 I, on the occasion of the observance of the International Day for the Eradication
of Poverty (IDEP).
                                                 49


   I OECD, which stands for Organisation for Economic Cooperation aand Development, groups
 the rich Northern Hemisphere countries plus Australia and New Zealand.
  2 Botswana is one of a very few countries with this capacity in the world.
  J There is in place since May 2002, a National Commission for Science and Technology tasked
 with guiding the implementation of the S&T Policy and advising Government ~n S&T matters
  4 Namola Leuba refers to the Drought Relief projects, which are mostly labour-mtenslve, which
 have from anecdotal evidence, discouraged some people from pursuing agriculture and instead
 opt for these relatively less back-breaking tasks, that are mostly executed at very relaxed ?ace:
  5 Cellular technology is diffusing rapidly and has already overtaken the number of land hnes III
 the country and seems like (if prices were to decrease significantly) it could playa critical role in
 connecting rural communities with information sources.
  6 There was skepticism on the poor paying back loans that Yunus extended to them, through his
 micro-credit scheme that he started to help the poor have access to banking, but not a charitable
 endeavour.
                                            References
Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis (BIDPA) (1997). Study of poverty and pov-
             erty alleviation in Botswana Volume 2: Technical Reports prepared for Rural Develop-
             ment Coordination Division, Ministry of Finance and Development Plarming.
Jensen, M. (2002). The African Internet - A status report. Feb. 2002. http://www3.wn.apc.org/
             africa/afstat.htm
Salmon, K., (2001) KENYA Schools without Walls Offer Skills to Farmers, IPS-Inter Press Serv-
             ice, http://www.ipsnews.netlfao_magazine/kenya2.shtml
Labelle, R. (2002), United Nations Development Progra...    nme, Guidance Notes and best practice
            - leTs in NHDRs, Version 1.01
Mutume, G. (1997), Africa Development: More thanjust Internet connections required. IPS June
            241992.
New Zealand Science and Technology Consortium (NZSTC) (2000). Focussing Investment in
            Innovation: On the coordination and rationalisation of science and technology and
            research and development in Botswana. Jan. 2000. Consultancy Report to the Ministry
            of Finance and Development Plarming.
Republic of Botswana (1997), National Development Plan (NDP 8), 1997-2003, Ministry of
            Finance and Development Planning. Government Printer: Gaborone.
Republic of Botswana, (2002) National Master Plan for Arable Agriculture and Dairy Develop-
            ment (NAMPAADD). Government White Paper No. I of 2002, Ministry of Agricul-
            ture. Government Printer: Gaborone.
Science and Technology Policy for Botswana (1998). Ministry of Finance and Development
            Planning, Govemment of Botswana.
Southern African Research and Innovation Management Association (SARIMA) (2002). Frame-
            work for developing the research & innovation capacity in Southern Africa in support
            of sustainable development (Draft document for discussion _ May 21 2002).
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Economic development in Africa: Per-
           formance, prospects and policy issues. United Nations, New York and Geneva, 200 I.
            UNCTAD/GDS/AFRICAII TD/B/48/12
United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report 2001. Making new tech-
     .      n~logies workfor human development. Oxford University Press.
Umted NatIOns Development Programme, Human Development Report 2002. Deepening de-
     .     mocracy in a fragmented world Oxford University Press.
ViSIOn2016 (1997) TowardsProsperity for All, Presidential Task Group for a long term vision for
           Botswana
Yunus, M., (I99:) Soul from the Ground Up. Noetic Sciences Review, Spring 1997. http://
           www.cltechco.netlgrarneenlbanklmicro/soul.html
                                                50