Financing children’s programmes post-the economic downturn in Botswana

Abstract

This paper sought to investigate financing challenges that local government councils in Botswana were likely to face as a result of budget and expenditure cuts in 2012 and beyond, in the light of the economic downturn. Using the case study design, the paper gathered data from officers involved with Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC) programme at the Kanye Administrative Authority and Moshupa Sub-District, Southern Botswana. In addition, interviews were conducted with officers of the National AIDS Coordinating Council (NACA) and the Director of the OVC programme. The major findings included evidence of (i) a decreasing but increasingly expensive caseload of orphans; (ii) widespread abuse of the OVC programme; and (iii) decreasing budgetary support for social programmes. The budgetary cuts must be understood in the context of post-global economic downturn-induced expenditure cuts experienced in various other sectors of the country’s economy. Although expenditure cuts have been a feature of public finance in Botswana since mid-2008 in the wake of the global recession, the subject has not received sufficient attention in the literature. Therefore, this study sought, in a modest way, to fill the glaring gap in this regard.

Keywords: Children’s programmes, economic downturn, expenditure cuts; Botswana, OVC.