Poverty and income inequality remains major challenges if not problems still affecting
the developing part of the world especially in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Botswana comes across as one African country also faced with the same catastrophic
poor living conditions for somewhat unreasonable size of the population. Botswana
came a long way dealing with these deplorable and dehumanising economic conditions
of poverty. It is traceable to the post-independence period (after 1966) when the country
became a sovereign with literally nothing to show in terms of socio-economic
transformation effected by the former British colonials’ government. In fact, at
independence the country was still among the poor countries in the world. The country
had no productive economic sector vibrant except only one abattoir, which established
in 1954. Everyone was dependable in famine relief programs, subsistence agriculture
which able-bodied men found their way to South African mines while the worked as
labourers. In a period of fifty years of self-rule, the country has dramatically
transformed from being the poorest country into an upper middle-income country that
has been largely attributed to discovery of diamonds in the late 1960´s that subsequently
transformed the face and economic sphere of the country to greater heights. According
to Moepeng (2013, p2) from independence throughout the subsequent decades, the
country transformed its rural population from nearly 95% of the rural population to the
current format of having 65% of urban population and it continues to increase. Poverty
at independence was also estimated to have been covering over 80% of the population
and improved throughout the decades to the status of having about 20.7% of the total
living below the poverty datum line. However, this research has also noted that income
inequality and unemployment have grown especially in the last three decades.
Unemployment in Botswana is current at 17.4% while the Gini coefficient last recorded
in (2002/03) was at 0.65, which translated into high-income inequality in the form of
income distribution particularly in consumption. The aim of this study was to establish
the level of inclusivity in the development approach adopted by Botswana that led to the
current poverty conditions in the country. The study also sought socio-economic policy
justification for the progress achieved this far.