Success Capital Organisation commemorates Africa Day through releasing a short account one one of our staff’s travels by road from Gaborone to Nairobi.* As an organisation that regularly holds trainings, stakeholder workshops and engaging different communities across the country, our advocacy and awareness raising is underpinned by storytelling and learning. We believe in ensuring awareness on issues that affect the most marginalised Batswana. For this year’s theme: “Educate an African Fit for the 21st Century: Building Resilient Education Systems for Increased Access to Inclusive, Lifelong, Quality, and Relevant Learning in Africa”, we illuminate the realities of where we stand in various areas:
- Botswana ranks 118th globally and 6th in Sub Saharan Africa on the SDG Index. It is the 5th most unequal by Gini-coeffient in Africa. Reflecting relative progress development, skewed for those with more privilege in education, income, residence at an urban area and most likely socially connected to advance socioeconomically. It ranks 5th in overall Governance in Africa, with an almost 5% decline in security and the rule of law between 2012 and 2021. It also ranks 118th globally and 8th in Africa on the Human Development Index, which measures life expectancy, educational attainment, income level and quality of life. More notably, it is the 53rd most dangerous country for women gobally and 37th in Africa. In Economic Freedom, it ranks 68th globally and 3rd in Sub Saharan Africa in 2024, with government integrity reflecting the lowest indicator measure from all others. Interestingly, the years 2013 and 2017 being mostly high in ranking. Reflecting a gradual decline during the current President’s tenure.
- Health Security stands at 108 globally and 10th regionally, without a single African country in the top 50. antimicrobial resistance, biosecurity, emergency preparedness and response planning, international commitments, cross-border agreements on public health and animal health emergency response, surveillance data accessibility and transparency, public health vulnerabilities and socio-economic resilience were some of the worst gradings reported. The impacts of climate change are already evident, as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment found in 2023: “these changes will have negative impacts on the enjoyment of the rights to food, health, water, sanitation, and a healthy environment among others.” Lastly, Botswana ranks 8th for Sub Saharan Africa and 110th globally in the 2023 Government AI Readiness Index.Presenting a need to ramp up governance in taking advantage of the 4th industrial revolution to ensure global competitiveness if a knowledge based economy will be achieved.
These rankings provide some insight in how strategic interventions are needed to improve the overall human rights and development environment for Batswana. We understand that comparability might not always be idea where data sets, approaches and collection periods are not consistent or universal. However, they illuminate the critical need for Batswana and Africans to hold their governments to account. More especially with 19 countries holding elections across Africa in 2024. The use of Sub Saharan Africa further polarises and perpetuate colonial demarcations, racial nuances, inequitable development framing and knowledge production. This is the critcal viewpoint of education: eliminating the historically skewed curricula and disposition of Africans and indigenous knowledge systems that were plundered, extracted and exploited from along with its culture, labour, familities and natural resources. Success Capital Organisation works to reshape the way we consume and understand the experiences of marginalised Africans, advancing more equitable and affirmative viewpoints on publicly taboo issues. This cannot occur using Audre Lordé’s tools of the master. We welcome the rights to health, work and education, alongside the inclusion of intersex within our Constitutional Review process and amidst anti-LGBT protests in Botswana.
*Enjoy by clicking on the embedded link: Journey Across Four African Nations
_____________________________________________________________________________
An accompanying commenting on Dineo’s experience, Dumiso Gatsha (they/them) notes that the “Protocol to the Treaty Establishing the African Economic Community Relating to Free Movement of Persons, Right of Residence and Right of Establishment has only been ratified by 4 countries. More glaringly, Africa’s richest man recently lamented how he needs a visa for 35 countries across Africa compared to Western passport holders who need far less. Whilst Dineo’s experience did not have barriers of visa and transportation routes, the alternatives were costly and limited. In some instances it is cheaper to go to Europe from a Francophone country to get to an Anglophone country – or even Ethiopia to get to another Southern African country. This reflects how the most basic of tenents for fulfilling the Agreement Establishing African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), free movement; serve as barriers despite 47 African countries ratifying it. Skills transfers, education mobility, remote work, trade and cultural exchanges shall remain behind whilst we wait for African governments to deal with regulations and improve infrastructure to realise Agenda 2063. This far off deadline absolve them from accountability as many of the current leaders will have long passed on.”