African Journal of Political Science and International Relations Vol. 4(7), pp. 249-262, October 2010 Available online at http://www.academicjournals.org/ajpsir ISSN 1996-0832 ©2010 Academic Journals Review The impact of good governance on development and poverty in Africa: Botswana - A relatively successful African initiative David Sebudubudu University of Botswana, Gaborone, Botswana. E-mail: Sebudubu@mopipi.ub.bw. Tel: +267 3552742. Fax: +267 3170706. Accepted 29 July, 2010 Botswana was one of the poorest countries in Africa when it obtained independence in 1966. Owing to the desolation that prevailed at the time, Botswana was considered a hopeless case. This article seeks to show case how good governance impacted on development and poverty in Botswana. Botswana is one of the few African countries that have remained intact since independence, despite the challenges it faced, and at the same time was able to realize development and in turn reduced poverty by African standards. The paper argues that good governance in Botswana facilitated development and impacted positively on poverty and stability, to this extent, this has been a responsive democracy. The paper provides statistical evidence to support this claim. Key words: Governance, poverty, development. INTRODUCTION The objective of this paper is to examine the impact of good governance on development and poverty using the case of Botswana. Underdevelopment and poverty are some of the major challenges that developing countries, including African countries, had been grappling with over the years. As a result, countries have made these challenges a matter of priority and also put in place measures to address them. Even the World Bank (2001) has made poverty reduction a matter of priority. Some countries have made relative success and others are still struggling to mitigate the effects of these problems on their citizenry. Botswana is one of the few African countries that have accomplished a lot in terms of realizing development and at the same time reduced poverty. Botswana’s achievements are in part attributed to good governance (Tsie, 1996; Theobald and Williams, 1999; Holm, 2000). This is what makes Botswana interesting to study. Botswana is a small country with around 1.8 million people. At independence, the country was under- developed with almost 90% of its people living in abject poverty (Molutsi, 2004) and its per capita income stood at US$ 60 (Edge, 1998). Owing to the desolation that prevailed at the time, Batswana were considered as ‘very brave or very foolish’ when they asked for independence (Masire, 2006). The picture is different today because Botswana has accomplished a lot in the last four decades. Poverty levels have dropped over the years from above 60% of the households in the 1970s to around 30% in 2005/6. Similarly, the unemployment rate has fallen to 17.6%, the lowest ever, of the labour force according to the latest estimates (Mogae, 2007). The literacy rate increased from below 25% at independence to over 90%. Equally, life expectancy increased to 65 in 1991 up from 48 at independence although it has been reduced to around 56 owing to HIV/AIDS. Even then the government has introduced measures to mitigate the scourge of HIV/AIDS (Sebudubudu and Molutsi, 2009). Unlike the 10 km of tarred road that the country had at independence, today it has around 10,000 of tarred road (Sebudubudu and Molutsi, 2009). The country’s GDP per capita (PPP) stands at US$ 13, 604 and its Human Development Index (HDI) increased between the years 1980 and 2007 by 0.94% annually from 0.539 to 0.694