Yearbook 2010
According to softwareleverage, Botswana’s long-standing economic success slowed down in the wake of the international financial crisis. The year before, the country’s diamond production had been halved due to reduced demand. Botswana’s diamonds normally account for half of the state’s revenue and a fifth of the world’s diamond production. Botswana’s second largest source of income, tourism, was also severely affected.
According to COUNTRYAAH, Botswana has a population of 2.254 million (2018). The country’s credit rating was downgraded at the beginning of the year, since the government had a budget deficit for two consecutive years and for 2010 calculated a deficit of more than 12 percent of GDP. With an unemployment rate of about 20 percent, the government spent a large part of the budget on the expansion of the electricity and water grid. It was considered necessary for the private sector to grow and create more jobs in a more multi-faceted economy, not so dependent on diamonds.
In June, four MPs broke out of the ruling party, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP), and formed the opposition Botswana Democracy Movement (BMD). According to the outbreak, democracy, the rule of law and human rights weakened rapidly as a result of BDP and President Ian Khama’s power monopoly. They claimed that there was no room for criticism or dissenting opinions in Khama’s party. The new party hoped for more defectors to enable a distrust vote against President Khama. In the 2009 election, Khama’s party received 45 seats against the opposition’s ten.
During the year, a study was conducted on 700 HIV-positive women in Botswana, which showed that brake medications almost wiped out the risk of HIV infection between mother and child. Without medication, the risk was that infants would be infected during pregnancy or through breastfeeding one in four, but with brake medication the risk was radically reduced. This means that HIV-infected women do not need to choose breast milk replacement instead of breastfeeding. Every fourth person between the ages of 14 and 49 in Botswana is HIV-infected.
- Abbreviation Finder: Check to see how the two letter abbreviation of BC stands for the country of Botswana in geography.
In July, the Kalahari Desert San people lost a court dispute after requesting re-use of a water hole where diamond drilling was conducted. The borehole was closed in 2002, when the government began to evict the approximately 4,000 bushmen from the reserve. According to the lawyer of the san people, the rash makes their traditional way of life impossible. The judge’s decision was appealed.
POPULATION AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
The population of Botswana, 80 % concentrated in the eastern part of the country, more developed and better equipped with resources, has risen to 1. 570. 000 inhab., According to a 1998 estimate. The rapid increase in population and the growing number of young people entering the labor market would require substantial increases in agricultural productivity and an intensification of the exploitation of natural resources. But this need clashes with environmental limitations: first of all the scarcity of rainfall and the recurring drought (particularly severe that of 1990 – 91, which has drastically reduced the livestock stock). Farming, which in the aftermath of independence provided the only exported products, represents just about 4 % of the value of exports.
The extraction of diamonds ( 16,674. 000 carats in 1995 ) has strengthened its role as the backbone of the vigorous economic development of the country, helping to form a third of gross domestic product and nearly l ‘ 80 % of the export value. The diamond industry absorbs most of the private sector workforce, with more than 6,000 employees. The exploitation of the huge coal reserves is held back by the low price level on the world market: mining ( 816,700 t in 1995 ) is limited to the Moropule mine, and serves to supply an on-site thermoelectric power station .The development of the manufacturing industry is hampered by the limited internal market, inadequate infrastructure, dependence on exports and a shortage of skilled labor. But, thanks to a government financial assistance program aimed at attracting foreign investors and facilitating local entrepreneurs, the manufacturing base has considerably expanded and diversified, registering particularly high expansion rates in textile, chemical, paper and paper production. plastics, electrical equipment, etc.
In recent years, tourism-related activities have also seen strong expansion (over one million foreign tourists in 1995 ). The balance of payments is active and the annual cost of servicing foreign debt in the first half of the 1990s was equivalent to less than 5 % of the total value of exports of goods and services.