Development is a complex process; it often leads to growth at
some places while it at the same time leads to stagnation at another place.
Development can mean prosperity for some groups and poverty for others.
Botswana has had a high economic growth rate the last twenty years – a
growth rate which has lifted the country out of the group of least
developed countries to a middle-income country. An interesting question is
what are the regional and social consequences of this growth? I will not try
to give a comprehensive answer to this question. This collection of papers
is based on a reserach prosject which startetd in 1980 and endend in years
2000. Thus, the conclusion is based upon data collected over a time span of
twenty years. By doing a re-study of the same two rural villages twenty
years after, I will be able to tell how the general development process in
Botswana has manifested itself on rural household standard of living and
their livelihood strategies. In the first article I give a general overwiev of
the development in Botswana the last twenty years. The next two articles
discuss the livelihood situation for the rural households. In the last article I
decribe the complex set of livelihood strategies which rural households
apply in order to make a living.