Poverty in Ngamiland

Study uncovers "pockets of severe poverty" within Botswana districts

THATO MOSEKI
CORRESPONDENT

 

A Central Statistics Office (CSO) study to produce the country's first Poverty Map has uncovered pockets of poverty at district level according to which Kgalagadi, Ghantsi and Ngamiland have the highest concentrations of severely poor households in Botswana.

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Other districts with comparatively high levels of severely poor households include the Southern District, Central, Kweneng and the Chobe. According to the Poverty Map, 'richer' districts are the South East, the North East and Kgatleng, in descending order.

The poverty headcount index, or the number of poor people expressed as a percentage of the population, shows that the Kgalagadi District is the worst with 19,133 poor people out of a total district population of 41,684. Within the Kgalagadi District, rural Kgalagadi South has a high poverty headcount of 11,570 people out of 19,348 classified as poor.

In short, two out of three residents of rural Kgalagadi South were classified as poor. In rural Ngamiland West, 24,556 out of 44,729 were classified as poor, while in rural Boteti, 16,461 people out of 32,857 were classified as poor.

Using the 2001 Population and Housing Census and the 2002/03 Household Income and Expenditure Survey (HIES) as base documents, the recently released study was able to identify poverty trends at district and sub-district levels. By analysing the data sets from the two base documents, the researchers were able to calculate estimations of poverty for small areas, making use of Poverty Datum Line estimates.

Internationally, the poverty datum line is set at US$1 per day (P6.6). In 2003, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimated that 30 percent of Batswana were living below the poverty datum line. The study, funded and assisted by UNDP, confirms previous data indicating that poverty is highest in rural areas. But it also goes further to identify in which districts, sub-districts and towns the poorest households are concentrated.

The Poverty Map was able to break down data from the Population and Housing Census and the HIES to calculate district, sub-district, town and locality poverty levels into categories such as poverty headcount, poverty gap and poverty severity. In the poorest district, Kgalagadi, the Poverty Map indicates that rural areas of Kgalagadi South have the highest poverty severity index, followed by the rural areas of Kgalagadi North.Another high poverty area is rural Ngamiland West into which the researchers incorporated areas around the Okavango Delta. Other areas with high poverty severity indices include rural Ngamiland East, rural Boteti and rural Kweneng West, in descending order.

Conversely, areas with lower poverty severity indices include Orapa, Sowa Town, Gaborone, Tlokweng and Jwaneng, in descending order. In terms of poverty gaps, the Kgalagadi District again had the highest index, followed by Ghantsi, Ngamiland, the Southern and the Central District. In Kgalagadi South, Tsabong had a poverty severity index of 0.041, while in contrast, areas in rural Kgalagadi South had a collective poverty severity index of 0.182.

Major towns such as Gaborone, Francistown, Lobatse and Selebi-Phikwe all showed lower poverty levels, in terms of poverty headcount, poverty gap and poverty severity, according to the Poverty Map.

The capital has a poverty headcount of 0.076 which translates into 13,804 poor people, while Francistown has 12,879. However, Lobatse and Selebi-Phikwe have high poverty headcounts, or numbers of poor people expressed as percentages of total populations.The Poverty Map shows that Lobatse has a poverty headcount index of 0.191, meaning that close to one in five residents of the border town are classified as poor.But the CSO warns that using district-level information often hides the existence of poverty pockets in otherwise relatively well-off districts, which would lead to poorly targeted schemes.

"Having better information at the local level would necessarily minimise information leakages and therefore permit more cost-effective and efficient anti-poverty schemes," the CSO report says. "Poverty indicators are needed at the local level, as spatial inequalities can be important within a given region."

The CSO strategists stressed that policy-makers and planners need finely disaggregated information in order to implement their anti-poverty schemes. Typically, they need information for small geographic units, such as city neighbourhoods, towns or villages, the researchers said.

The CSO and UNDP hope the Poverty Map will become an important tool in support of the government's administrative and decentralisation processes currently taking place.
The Poverty Map could also be used in conjunction with alternative measures of poverty alleviation based on education, health or infrastructure indicators.

Source: Mmegi on line. October 30, 2009