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People
Culture and Ethnicity
Botswana is a fairly homogenous country, with the majority of people belonging to the politically dominant Tswana (Setswana) tribes: Bakgatla, Barolong, Bakwena, Bangwaketse, Bangwato, Barolong, Batlokwa and Bamalete. Tribes are sub-populations within an ethnic group. The Botswana, a term used to denote all citizens of Botswana (singular, Motswana), also refers to the country's major ethnic group (the "Tswana" in South Africa), which came into the area from South Africa during the Zulu wars of the early 1880s. The Tswana are most numerous in the east and in some regions in the northeast. In northwestern Botswana, the Kalanga and the Yai, respectively, outnumber the Tswana tribes. Another group represented in Botswana are the Kgalagdi and the Barsawa. Europeans also make up a small portion of the population.
A Note on the Barsawa
The Barsawa bushmen (part of the San ethnolinguistic group and referred to as the "Bushmen") come from the Kalahari desert. In recent years they have captured attention because their traditional home in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in Botswana is a vast but extraordinarily rich area. For centuries, it has has been one of the chief hunting-grounds in southern Africa for the Bushmen and it has been the foundation upon which they have lived for the duration. The land, however, is also home to a wealth of diamonds, and especially important to diamond manufacturers, such as the De Beers corporation. The government of Botswana decided that the Bushmen should be removed from reserve and relocated elsewhere. But the ongoing process since the late 1990s has been troublesome and heartbreaking. (See "Political Conditions" for further details.)
Religion
The majority of the people are nominal Christians, with a large admixture of African traditional beliefs. About 50 percent are practicing Christians. The majority of these are Anglicans, Congregationalists and Methodists; these groups have united in Botswana. There are other, smaller Protestant and Roman Catholic communities in the country.
Language
English is the official language although Setswana is also spoken. The literacy rate in Botswana is 81.2 percent. Note that 8.9 percent of GDP is spent on educational expenditures in this country.
Population
The population of Botswana is approximately two million. The majority of the population is concentrated in the eastern part of the country, and 35 percent live in rural areas. Botswana has experienced one of the fastest rates of urbanization in the world. When the country first gained independence in 1966, only three percent of the population lived in towns. Now, more than 60 percent of the population are settled in urban areas.
Health and Welfare
The infant mortality rate in Botswana, by contrast, is one of the lowest in Africa at only 11.79 per 1,000 live births. As well, the literacy rate is fairly high for Africa at 81 percent. According to the United Nations Development Program, life expectancy at birth was estimated in recent to be about 50 years of age. The Central Intelligence Agency suggests an even higher life expectancy of about 60.1 years of age.
The major contributing factor for the changes in life expectancy relates to the HIV/AIDS virus. Currently, Botswana has one of the highest HIV/AIDS infection rate in southern Africa and, indeed, one of the highest in the world. According to official statistics, the prevalence of the rate of HIV/AIDS is 23.9 percent and over 300,000 people were reported to be living with the disease in recent years.
As a result of the impact of the virus, it is estimated that the Botswana economy will be one-third smaller over the next decade. Consequently, the Mogae government has launched an awareness and prevention campaign promoting a return to traditional social values. It is too early too predict whether this campaign will be successful, however, making anti-retroviral drugs more available appears to have had some degree of a mitigating effect.
The risk of infectious diseases in this country is high. Food or waterborne diseases include bacterial diarrhea, hepatitis A, and typhoid fever; vectorborne diseases include malaria. Note that 10.3 percent of GDP is spent on health expenditures in this country.
Human Development
One notable indicator used to measure a country's quality of life is the Human Development Index (HDI), which is compiled annually since 1990 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The HDI is a composite of several indicators, which measure a country's achievements in three main arenas of human development: longevity, knowledge and education, as well as economic standard of living. In a recent ranking of 169 countries, the HDI places Botswana in the medium human development category, at 98th place.
Note: Although the concept of human development is complicated and cannot be properly captured by values and indices, the HDI, which is calculated and updated annually, offers a wide-ranging assessment of human development in certain countries, not based solely upon traditional economic and financial indicators.
Written by Dr. Denise Youngblood Coleman, Editor in Chief, www.countrywatch.com; see Bibliography for list of research sources.
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