By Alma Balopi
GABORONE, Apr 13 2011 (IPS)

In a country where the death penalty enjoys vocal support from both the government and the public, lawyer and politician Duma Boko is not afraid to stand firmly against it. Boko will be in court on Apr. 15 to argue for the life of a client against daunting odds.

Duma Boko: a passion to defend human rights. Credit: Alma Balopi/IPS

Boko, who is also the leader the opposition Botswana National Front party, will be appealing the conviction and sentencing to death of Brandon Sampson. Sampson was convicted alongside South African citizen Michael Molefhe in 2007 for two murders. Their execution is scheduled for July.

Ahead of the court appearance, IPS spoke to the prominent human rights advocate about the case and the prospects for abolishing the death penalty in Botswana. Excerpts of the interview follow.

Q: What are Michael Molefhe and Brandon Sampson asking the court for in the hearing beginning Friday? A: They are asking the court to quash and set aside their convictions. As you know each one of them has been convicted on two counts of murder and sentenced on each to death.

I represent Brandon Sampson. He is saying his conviction was unfounded and the court failed and committed grave errors in analysis and examination of the evidence that was presented to it. On that basis, he is asking the court of appeal to quash and set aside that conviction and sentence as unsustainable and erroneous both in law and in fact.

Q: Doesn’t executing those convicted of murder help the families of the deceased feel better about their loss? A: I don’t think it makes them feel better. No one has done that study here to establish that it does.

What I think it does is that it cheapens human life.

The society that celebrates death by the state is an immature society. If we think our people are that immature, we need either to educate them or to establish if indeed they are.

Because you may find that they are far from being that immature. It is the state that is immature in this regard and the legal system that forces judges and the state to be that immature.

Q: In light of the 2005 acquittal of Maauwe and Motsetlwa, whoseoriginal trial was set aside and the state delayed too long to re-try them, what are some system-wide problems with state-appointed lawyers in capital cases? A: A senior attorney of my standing can only take on these cases as the case is not paid at all – can only do it because he has got a passion to defend human rights.

Not all lawyers have that kind of passion and therefore not all of them would apply themselves with as much commitment and zeal as required fighting a case of this nature. We need to improve on that and secondly to make sure that they are given much facilities.

The state when it prosecutes has all the facilities. The constitution requires that in the marshalling of their defence, the accused persons be afforded the same facilities that the state has.

There is no equality of arms, if you will, when the attorney representing the accused person does not have the same resources as the state. That is basically violating the constitution and that violation must itself vitiate the imposition of death penalty on an individual. So it is a real challenge.

Q: It appears some of the most determined voices raised against capital punishment in Botswana have become muted recently – what are the prospects for abolition in the future? A: I don’t know what the prospects are. Certainly it will take a committed government at this stage or a very committed judiciary.

I think the latter is what we hope to have. We will not have a committed reaction to this issue from this government. It is a very populist government; it is a government that believes in sentences of this nature. It is government with a person at the helm who I doubt reflects on the jurisdiction and philosophical implications of some of these penalties and their efficacy in terms of either deterring or achieving social objectives.

So we will look to the judiciary. Even then, the calibre that operates now it is competent to pronounce against death penalty.

Q: You said earlier that your party fights for human rights in the country. As a BNF government President would you impose a moratorium or seek to repeal the death penalty in Botswana? A: Of course, when I am at the helm of that government, I will not sign anybody’s death warrant whether the law says so or not.

It is a position for which I don’t apologise for because it is a principled position.

Excerpt:

By Alma Balopi
GABORONE, Mar 30 2011 (IPS)

The evidence of Gaborone’s inadequate sewerage system hangs in the air over the Botswana capital’s low income area. Pit latrines dominate, and residents complain that the city doesn’t empty them frequently enough. But the end may be in sight.

There are simply no sewers in large parts of Gaborone’s low income areas. The city – which had fewer than 4,000 people at independence in 1966 – quickly lost the race to expand its sewerage infrastructure as fast as the city grew.

Walking in the location now, a heavy smell of pit latrines lingers, dirty water flows in the streets where the children are playing, and overflowing dustbins line the streets. Sludge removal of pit latrines would normally need to be done every two to five years, but in overcrowded sections of Gaborone, many pits should really be emptied much more frequently.

The mayor of Gaborone, Veronica Lesole, admits that sanitation in the areas served by the Self Help Housing Agency (SHHA) leaves much to be desired, but she has complained in the past that residents are partly to blame for poor services.

“They are the ones who throw in objects like metal and blankets in the pit latrines which end up blocking up pipes and damaging vacuum tankers as they vacuum the toilets,” she told Mmegi Newspaper last year. “The dirty water flows from the pit latrines as a result of their actions.”

Investing in infrastructure

But the authorities confronting the problem head on, and much of the work for an upgrade and extension of the sewerage system to cover low income areas has already been completed.

The sewerage expansion is an initiative of the Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism (MEWT) through the Department of Waste Management and Pollution Control. It was launched two years ago with the intent of improving sanitation for households and businesses in and around the capital.

The environment minister, Onkokame Mokaila, said the expansion would reduce the risk of diseases related to poor sanitation and environmental pollution.

Mokaila added that fast-growing industries had exacerbated the situation. With more than 220,000 people living in Gaborone and roughly another 120,000 in the surrounding areas of Mogoditshane, Tlokweng and Phakalane, the volume of sewage has exceeded the city’s capacity to treat it, even before new households are added to the system.

The current treatment plant has a capacity of 40 megalitres per day; the plan is to expand this to 65 megalitres immediately towards an eventual goal of 90 megalitres.

The government has demonstrated its commitment to rectifying the situation by allowing the ministry to exceed its initial budget, with the total cost of the expansion now expected to be well over 150 million dollars. This will cover construction of a network of sewer pipes in the main SHHA areas, as well as expansion of primary sewer pipes and sewerage pump lifting stations.

Residents welcome plans

“Companies are in the field working on this project which is expected to be completed by March 2012,” says Ephraim Mabengano, a councillor in the Segoditshane area of the city.

Mabenango is enthusiastic but cautious. As many of his constituents are unemployed or self-employed in the informal sector, they may not be able to afford to connect their homes to a centralised sewerage system.

“Most of them are poor and there has been no mention by government on how they would assist such people’s households to be connected to the sewerage lines,” he says.

Residents can hardly wait. Seibatsu Chule, who lives in the oldest low-income location in Gaborone, Old Naledi, people had long ago given up hope that government would improve their situation.

“But now that ray of hope has been brought back with all the construction that is going on to upgrade the sewerage system in this area. Our lives will be improved – relieved not only from the smell, but from the diseases that come with poor sanitation,” she said.

Excerpt:

By Alma Balopi
GABORONE, Mar 29 2011 (IPS)

“The Botswana Caucus for Women in Politics has failed to realise the objectives it was intended for, but we will not give up on it just yet,” says Margaret Nasha.

The BCWP is a platform established to enable women from all political parties to converge and support each other in their attempts to make their mark in a male-dominated field.

When it was set up 15 years ago, its membership was initially restricted to women in parliament. Nasha, the first woman to serve as Speaker of Parliament in Botswana, explained that four years in, they realised that only women from the ruling Botswana Democratic Party were benefiting from it and they decided to open membership to any active woman member of a political party.

The caucus was established to offer political education to the women with ambitions to stand for political office.

“We ran loads of seminars on that before the women contested the primary elections, and later those who won would be empowered on how to campaign and make a mark in their different areas of interest,” she said.

The Caucus also worked to educate voters. “Simply put, we were telling them that it was okay to vote for a woman to take up a political office because a woman would represent their needs and aspirations first-hand as mothers,” she explained.

No success

Nasha, who served for some time as president of the Caucus, told IPS that their efforts have borne no fruit in 14 years of existence. “We have not made any progress in increasing the number of women parliamentarians and have rather regressed. On local councils the numbers are there, but still not where we had wanted,” she said, adding that careful investigation of the reasons for their failure is called for.

Answering her own question, she said education and empowerment have not overcome material obstacles confronting women politicians. Political campaigning is an expensive business, and Nasha said few women command sufficient resources to do so.

The BCWP also perhaps suffered from being associated with the ruling Botswana Democratic Party, with women in opposition parties wary of participating – a suspicion encouraged by their male counterparts.

“They were told by the men who they consulted in their parties that joining the BCWP was selling their own parties to BDP. When they realised that they needed those political skills and decided to join, the ruling party had already built the majority,” Nasha – herself a BDP member – said.

Rhodah Sekgororoane, an activist from the Botswana National Front – has served as the BCWP deputy president for the past 11 years. “Before I joined I could not stand up and talk like a real politician on the podium. I lacked confidence and I did not believe in myself,” she said.

“To tell the whole truth, this would be a good tool for women politicians, but it is being destroyed by the women themselves,” she said.

Despite holding office in the Caucus herself, she alleges that the BDP members want to occupy all the top positions, and use their numbers to vote for only for women from opposition parties who they think they can manipulate.

“This is just some sort of BDP Women League extension,” she concludes.

Broader participation needed

But Pinkie Mekgwe, a University of Botswana academic and respected gender scholar, said the caucus is a useful structure. “It has less to do with inclination towards certain political parties, but a lot to do with numbers of women actively involved in politics that are not yet enough at key decision-making or policy-making levels.”

Mekgwe told IPS that even if there are issues amongst women within the Caucus, only if a sufficient number of women subscribe to the structure could one definitely say whether it is beneficial or not.

She said there are so many women visible in campaigns and party conferences, but the same women do not participate in the Caucus.

“We need to see those women who sing coming on board in terms of voting their fellow women to key positions where they can be involved in policy transformation and decision making,” she said.

Moggie Mbaakanyi, elected president of the Caucus late last year, said political parties are not committed to the empowerment of women. “In other parties there have a 30 percent quota system in print for women but in practice we do not see that.

There is no quota system being used for women to get into the central committees,” she said adding that the ruling party does not believe in quotas and that as long as the ruling party has nothing in place the situation cannot change to get women in parliament or councils.

Mbaakanyi – who, also belongs to the BDP – said that during her tenure she will look for ways to amend the electoral laws. She explained that first-past-the-post elections do not work in favour of the women. “We have to look at how laws can be amended,” she said.

It remains to be seen if the women from the different political parties and experience the same challenges would succeed at speaking with one voice to advance their quest to make their marks in politics in Botswana.

A young political studies student at the University of Botswana, Mpho Elliot, said there is a need for politicians to engage the youth in such structures to change mindsets and attitudes at a young age.

“Changing attitudes is not an event but a process and this is where the phrase “catch them young” comes into play.”

Excerpt:

By Alma Balopi
GABORONE, Mar 15 2011 (IPS)

They come like pilgrims to the Department of Geological Surveys office in Lobatse, 120 kilometres south of the Botswanan capital. In the sparsely furnished offices there, they pore over charts, trying to take the guesswork out of choosing where to sink a borehole.

Success means cool clear water welling up from the earth to supply a farm or a village. Failure means thousands of pula wasted, a failing business or continued hardship for a community. Johannes Tsimako, of the Geological Surveys Department of the Ministry of Water, Minerals and Energy Affairs, sees farmers who have travelled long distances to access the data in his office.

The alternative is to hire an expensive independent surveyor, with no guarantee of success.

Keinetse Keineetse, a farmer at Phiriyabokwete Lands, just 80 kilometres from Gaborone. Keineetse, a retired media personality who has turned to raising livestock, paid dearly for failed attempts to locate water on his farm.

He attributed the failure to lack of detailed information as to where to find the water around his farm. “I hired a surveyor who charged me 3,000 pula ($450) and he identified a place where I drilled a hundred metres at a charge of P 260 per metre ($39) but I hit a blank,” he said.

“I still had to pay.”

The data held at Lobatse is meant to guide surveyors, but it is sadly partial. The vital information is not easy to come by; much of it is held at institutions outside the country, and ordering copies is costly.

But a knowledge-sharing project that aims to fill in many of the gaps in the hydrogeological image – the map of underground water – in Botswana and the rest of Southern Africa was launched in January 2010. Supported by GIZ, the German Development Cooperation agency, at least 2,000 “grey items” will be rescued from various places and made available to surveyors via the internet by the middle of 2011.

Jude Cobbing, a hydrologist at Water Geosciences, a consulting company, explained to IPS that a grey item is an unpublished report or paper – or one that was only published in limited quantities and is now out of print.

“Essentially, grey items are reports or research papers that are difficult to get hold of,” he said.

A huge body of knowledge containing all sorts of data for Africa – ranging from water levels and rainfall to discussions of groundwater sustainability and climate variations – is currently in the category of grey data. “Grey reports can provide us with a picture of past water use and/or climate which is hard to get elsewhere,” Cobbing said.

Cobbing said that many of these unpublished or limited edition reports are held outside of Africa, at institutions such as the British Geological Survey, but other data is stored on the continent. “And this is why we would like to partner with African organisations.”

As the data is recovered and organised, it will be made available via a web portal that anyone can access.

Keineetse eventually found water on his farm, after turning to another surveyor, this time someone with a strong reputation for success earned with good work for the water affairs ministry.

He found water, but it cost him over 10,000 dollars to drill, $6,000 more to equip the well with solar panels for a pump, and another $450 for the surveyor’s work.

“I used the family funds that were saved for the children,” Keineetse said. “The portal will be huge relief in that it will remove the uncertainty for many farmers and reduce chances of lost resources because if you hit a blank due to lack of knowledge you still have to pay lots of money.”

The new data resource will not actually help someone like Keineetse directly with locating underground water. “Grey data can help broadly identify areas where groundwater may occur due to the underlying geology, but can’t help find groundwater consistently or reliably in your backyard or farm,” says Rex Brown, an environmental scientist based in Swaziland, before raising an interesting question.

“If we can find oil thousands of metres below groundwater, why can’t we find water tens or hundreds of metres below ground?”

The Geological Surveys Department’s Tsimako said that there are currently outreach programmes to support farmers searching for water, but these are not systematic or convenient. “The portal will be more important for farmers to access the information wherever they are and whenever they need it instead of travelling all the way for such information,” he said.

Brown argues that the techniques and equipment used to locate groundwater have barely advanced in the past 60 or 70 years. “Water exploration must tie itself to the advances made in the petroleum industry whereby specialist software and computers can help remove errors or false readings.”

Excerpt:

By Alma Balopi
GABORONE, Oct 9 2010 (IPS)

Florence Shagwa, a female councillor at the Gaborone City Council, considers her three-year business qualification worthless.

Shagwa, who holds a Business and Accounting Certificate that she attained at the University of Botswana part-time over three years, was employed by banks as a training manager before taking up her current post.

But looking around at the other female councillors she works with, Shagwa knows that she is better educated than most. “For those who might claim to be a bit educated they had gone as far as senior school only, while for some it is a big deal to write,” Shagwa said speaking of her fellow female councillors.

And while she does not necessarily think it is a piece of paper that women councillors need to make an impact, she said that one of the hindering factors that women face in local government are their own education levels.

“For (these women), even (working) in a formalised environment and meeting or rubbing shoulders with people who matter is a problem. They always shy away when meeting such people,” she said.

According to the country’s Independent Electoral Commission no qualifications are needed for one to run for a post in local government except to campaign for votes. However, participants are vetted for criminal records.

“I do not have a problem with other women except with their attitudes. As an individual I do make an effort to be well informed. But I cannot say the same about most of the women in council,” she said.

Shagwa said most of the female councillors incorrectly think that they should not be seen to take the lead. “As women we do not believe in ourselves because of the culture that we grew up with. We believe that we are not supposed to take the initiative and leave that to our male counterparts,” she said adding roles in local government are not defined to attract educated people.

Shagwa, who also sits on numerous committees in the council including the Finance committee where projects and budgets are approved, said that many people did not feel becoming a local councillor was worth their while.

“Well-educated people think that campaigning to join local government would be like wasting their time. But it is just about serving the people,” she said explaining that she has been effective in representing and serving the people in her community at the council level by advocating for their basic needs.

While one might think that female councillors would be better placed to empower other women in their communities, Shagwa said that it is not the case.

“In Gaborone I have not seen any women councillor working to empower other women except to prove that they are better than those women in their societies,” she said. She strongly feels that generally women at local government are not serving their people but their own interests.

But for Mayor Caroline Lesang, things in her area run a bit differently. The mayor of Lobatse Town Council just 80 kilometres south of Gaborone, believes that with six women out of a total of 13 councillors in her local government, gender sensitivity in their deliberations is the norm of the day.

Lesang, who is also the national Vice President of the Botswana Association of Local Authorities that works to promote local governance, said that all programs in their council deliberations have to include women.

But she added that the current system made it difficult for women to make an impact on local legislation initiatives and the budget. “We can do the budgets but when it gets to central government for approval it would be reduced in such a way that one could never achieve all the things that they budgeted for,” she said.

Lesang explained that the current system does not empower women. She said women lack resources to campaign during elections. She said that generally women do not vote for other women even though they are the majority of voters and the ones at the forefront of the campaigns.

“This is the reason that many women cannot make it to council. If they do, it has to be double the work done by when it was a man campaigning for the seat,” she said.

And Ephraim Mabengano, a male councillor agrees. He said that there are no structures or committees that empower women councillors to have an impact in the running of local government. He said it is encumbered on the women who are there already to propose that committees be formed to empower themselves.

“You will find that they are not well informed, they do not make much contribution in council deliberations as they do not have much time to read to inform themselves after work,” Mabengano said.

Though some disagree. Political analyst at the University of Botswana, Zibani Maundeni, said women participation in politics at the local level is surely a key driver for women’s empowerment.

Maundeni believes that there is no discrimination as women are treated as their male counterparts.

“From my experience after visiting different councils around the country I have not heard a female mayor or women in leading posts in different committees complaining that they are not being given support as when the post was being held by a male candidate – be it in making decisions on projects or the budget,” Maundeni said.

Excerpt:

By Alma Balopi
GABORONE, Sep 1 2010 (IPS)

“An HIV-positive woman must never be encouraged to breastfeed because regardless of what the doctors or researchers say – it is too dangerous for the baby,” says Koziba Kelatlhe an HIV-positive mother who was advised by health workers not to breastfeed her child.

It has been over a year since the Harvard-Botswana Mma Bana Study (meaning “Mother baby” in Setswana) found that HIV-positive mothers who take combinations of antiretrovirals (ARVs) can safely breastfeed. The groundbreaking study, conducted in Botswana, was the first randomised study in Africa to compare highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) regimens used during pregnancy or breastfeeding. It produced the lowest rate of mother to child transmission in comparison with other studies done in Africa.

Project director, Dr. Joseph Makhema, from the Botswana-Harvard Partnership (BHP) which conducted the study, said it influenced the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines on the use of HAART to prevent mother-to-child transmission. At the 2010 HIV Conference in Vienna in July, the WHO passed new recommendations saying mothers may safely breastfeed provided they or their infants receive ARVs during the breastfeeding period of up to one year.

But Kelatlhe and other HIV-positive mothers and even doctors in Botswana are unconvinced that this will be truly effective or implementable.

Seated on a bench in the waiting area at the Infectious Diseases Care Clinic (IDCC), Kelatlhe smiled shyly. She was one of the many women waiting for her prescription of ARVs. She fiddled with her medical cards as she told IPS that her child, who is now two years old, is HIV-negative thanks to the PMTCT medication she took. “Maybe if I breastfed it would be a different story now,” she said implying that if she had been on PMTCT and breastfed she would have passed the virus on to her child.

But according to the study, pregnant HIV-positive mothers were given HAART at 28 weeks of pregnancy. The primary goal of the study, explained Makhema, was to compare the suppression of the viral load at delivery and throughout breastfeeding among women allotted to receive different ARV regimens, and to determine the mother-to-child transmission rate after six months of breast-feeding among all women who received ARV therapy.

Women were instructed to exclusively breastfeed and to wean their infants from breast milk at six months. The study found that mother-to-child transmission was very low at one percent.

“The Botswana government is preparing to roll out a programme to provide HAART to all pregnant women with HIV,” Makhema said.

But the roll out programme may face resistance from pregnant mothers and medical practitioners. Even medical doctors share Kelatlhe’s sentiments about not breastfeeding. Dr. Unabatsho Maposa at the Princess Marina Referral Hospital’s IDCC is one such doctor. Maposa said although the new recommendations by the WHO stated it was safe for HIV-positive mothers to breastfeed, provided they were on ARVs, it was not practical.

“The recommendations have not been instilled in government medical institutions and I doubt it would be because it is not practical,” Maposa said. According to him, mothers can breastfeed in theory but because it has to be exclusive breastfeeding for prevention of transmission to work, it is not practical therefore it would not be possible.

“The baby should not be given any other liquids except the mother’s milk. Therefore there is no woman who can do that because they are bound to give the baby something and that is when it becomes dangerous for the baby,” Maposa explained adding that by the time the baby is given any other liquids the breastfeeding has to be stopped.

His view is that the study was done as a way of finding an option in the resource-limited settings in poor countries and how breastfeeding could benefit HIV-positive mothers and their babies. “There are many deaths for babies born to HIV-positive mothers but recently the rate has gone down as a result of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission and many babies born free of the virus,” Maposa said.

But Makhema explained the problem with the current protocol (Botswana currently discourages HIV-positive mothers to breastfeed) is that babies are exposed to illnesses as a result of bottle-feeding.

“Currently, the protocol has been that women on treatment could not breastfeed their babies while the babies had to take one month treatment while feeding on formula. This exposes children to illnesses as the formula is not always prepared well or the bottles got exposed to infections,” Makhema said. The method was not sustainable because the formula would sometimes run out leaving mothers and babies in a desperate situation.

“It was therefore necessary to find a method that would be affordable and sustainable to control transmission of the virus from mothers to babies,” concluded Makhema.

The ministry of health said the dissemination of the Mma Bana study findings was ongoing. “This has been done through different media portals in the country by the BHP. The government of Botswana provides free ARVs to all HIV infected citizens who are eligible, including nursing mothers,” Koona Keapoletswe, acting director of the department of HIV/AIDS at the ministry said.

He said once the new guidelines were finalised, they would be disseminated to all healthcare workers in the country for implementation to benefit all Batswana.

Excerpt:

By Alma Balopi
GABORONE, Aug 20 2010 (IPS)

Many Batswana are quick to recoil at the mere mention of drinking treated wastewater.

“As soon as I hear it is treated waste water, my mind will be flooded with the images of the waste water before being treated and I will never drink it,” says 25-year-old Chandida Matebu, the look on her face confirming her words.

“I would drink if I was not aware that it was treated. But even if it comes bottled and shipped all the way from America, I will not drink. The water would not pass down my throat, no way.”

Obert Gakeope is a rare exception. “Most people have drunk it without knowing. It is the idea of knowing that is putting people off. I have taken the water when I was in Windhoek and in America and I know it is not dangerous for my health.”

Gakeope said that he would not be scared to drink the water as long he knew the process that has been used to treat it.

His open-ness to recycled water – and Matebu’s much more common rejection – will be put to the test in the not-so-distant future. According to Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) Public Relations Manager Matida Mmipi, a groundbreaking project to reclaim wastewater from treated effluent at the Glen Valley Wastewater Treatment plant in Gaborone is in the tendering stage.

She explained that the project, which was started after 2006/07’s debilitating drought, has passed the pre-feasibility and feasibility stages, with the hired consultants reporting that reclamation of wastewater is both technically and economically workable for the Botswanan capital.

Within two years, residents of greater Gaborone could be drinking reclaimed water, as their counterparts in Harare, Windhoek and London have been doing for decades.

Energy, Minerals and Water Resources Minister Ponatshego Kedikilwe said the wastewater project was pushing ahead.

“The aim is further treatment to augment potable water supply to greater Gaborone by 2013, when a water supply deficiency is expected.”

The feasibility studies included an extensive public participation exercise undertaken as part of the Environmental Impact Assessment process. The WUC’s consultants cast their net wide; alert to the fact that many Batswana had already expressed their revulsion to consuming reclaimed water.

However, the consultants reported that “the EIA process did not identify this to be a major concern in all the areas that will be affected, which include areas currently supplied by WUC from Lobatse to Mochudi including Gaborone.”

Wary of the prevailing perceptions, Kedikilwe was quick to assuage the public’s concerns.

“All of us have travelled outside the country at one time or another. If you have been to South Africa, you drank treated water or if you travelled to Israel or London. So enjoy it in your own country,” Kedikilwe said.

“That water has to be treated and used for irrigation or crops; treatment for the likes of beetroot will be different for maize. But there must be a stage where the water is treated and gets back into the system and we drink it,” Kedikilwe added.

It is expected that the reclamation plant will use six high technology filtration, disinfection and stabilisation processes. This could however be cold comfort for some consumers, who question whether there are alternatives to wastewater reclamation and whether the final product would be safe for human consumption.

The wastewater reclamation project is part of the WUC’s water supply interventions, which anticipate a shortage of water in Gaborone by 2030.

Excerpt:

By Alma Balopi
FRANCISTOWN, Botswana, Jul 30 2010 (IPS)

The vegetables Omphemetse Monyi sells at the Francistown bus rank come from 400 kilometres away in South Africa. One approach to development might seek to replace her suppliers with local farmers, but Southern Africa’s water managers are considering the merits of reinforcing a regional trade in “virtual water”.

Depending on the season, Monyi sells watermelons, tomatoes, potatoes, onions from the back of her truck. The 44-year-old makes the trip to South Africa each week to purchase vegetables for sale; she says she buys about 10,000 pula worth of stock ($1430), and makes a profit of between P3,000 and P4,000.

It’s not just informal traders who bring fruit and vegetables to northern Botswana from elsewhere. The supermarkets down the road from her stall also import their produce from South Africa. It’s part of a trade in virtual water, though Monyi doesn’t think of it that way.

“For those [Botswana farmers] who do harvest and sell, they do not produce the quality that we get in the South African farms. Take potatoes for example, they will not be cleaned well and not packaged according to size,” she says.

Until recently, one of the first questions economists might ask would be, why can’t the farmers in Botswana compete? The answers might include disadvantages in terms of good soil and sufficient water, or capital to allow them to mechanise production and put more land under cultivation. The recommendation might be to address these problems to help local farmers gain a foothold in their local market.

But some disadvantages cannot readily be overcome with money or training. Enriching soil, for example, is a slow process, but possible.

Increasing available water presents its own challenges. Irrigation schemes can be prohibitively expensive to construct and maintain; the high temperatures and low humidity in northern Botswana can mean significant amounts of precious water are lost to evaporation. When these costs are factored in, even irrigation may not allow local farmers to produce vegetables or fruit at a competitive price.

David Phillips an independent consultant and researcher based in Namibia, explains that countries can use virtual water to strategically enhance their overall access to fresh water.

“Perhaps the best examples of this are Israel and Egypt, both of whom import large quantities of foodstuffs and other items containing virtual water. Israel for example uses about 2.2 cubic kilometres of fresh water annually but imports about three times this volume every year in virtual water form.”

The concept of virtual water means thinking of an agricultural product – or other commodity – in terms of the amount of water required to produce it.

Due to richer soils, lower temperatures and evaporation, and better farming techniques, a thousand litres of water used in a farm along the South African stretch of the Limpopo will produce more tomatoes or sugar than the same amount of water used somewhere upstream in Botswana, where the river runs through more arid countryside.

Phillips is one of those involved in developing guidelines for basin-wide management of transboundary rivers in the Southern Africa region.

He explains how virtual water can give managers additional flexibility in negotiating allocation of water resources. The idea is that certain countries have optimal conditions for growing food; a benefit-sharing approach is to maximise production of crops per unit volume of water.

“Where these countries attain high levels of productivity, it implies a global saving of water compared to producing the crops elsewhere and this is important if we are to continue to feed the world’s growing population,” Phillips said.

A benefit sharing approach to local economic development and food security along the Limpopo River recognises that these advantages can mean greater productivity and food security at lower cost for everyone: consumers in Botswana can make virtual – optimum – use of water if the farming is done in South Africa.

There are many other factors to consider, including the livelihoods of local farmers: virtual water is a concept that policy makers in river basin organisations are still working to grasp in order to see how they stand to benefit.

During a June brainstorming session of the Limpopo Basin Technical Committee held in Francistown, Botswana, water managers from throughout the basin were still cautiously assessing how benefit sharing might work.

“We need to build confidence first before we can say anything on this issue,” the delegation from Mozambique said.

“We will have to look at the cost-benefit to the country,” was all South Africa’s delegation would say.

Tracy Molefi-Mbui, River Basins Coordinator at the International Office in Botswana’s Ministry of Minerals, Water and Energy Affairs said the question of how the trade-offs will work in the full social, economic and political context of a transboundary river basin is not yet clear.

“If a country says, I will forgo this resource so that country B could produce this amount of products, how will that country benefit economically? Its applicability is still remote because we have not fully comprehended it,” she said.

Like any other decision making tool, Molefi-Mbui said, countries will need facts on the value of the system in order to “play our cards right as per the findings of the studies. It is complicated by the fact that [the trade-offs are] not even just between the countries, but also between provinces within a country.”

As the benefit-sharing concept is developed by the Southern African Development Community’s Water Sector, the hope is that it will become another concrete example of the regional body’s objectives, including sustainable collective development, harmonisation of political and socio-economic policies, and interdependence of member states.

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By Alma Balopi
GABORONE, Jun 2 2010 (IPS)

Two of Botswana’s biggest breweries are putting smiles on the faces of farmers. No, they are not giving beer away: the breweries are planning to buy sorghum from small-scale farmers at prices far higher than the Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board (BAMB) is offering.

Botswana farmers in a test plot for sorghum at Mmalore. Credit: Alma Balopoi/IPS

Selling at a loss

The Marketing Board is a public enterprise, established in 1974, with a mandate to buy scheduled produce from local farmers and ensure that adequate supplies of food are available to the public at affordable prices.

BAMB acts as a one stop shop for producers and consumers alike, buying, packaging, processing and marketing locally-produced grains, pulses and selling a wide range of animal feeds and agricultural products such as seeds and fertilisers.

John Phirinyane of Kanye village, about hundred kilometers south of Gaborone, feels the Board has held farmers back and is enthusiastic about any opportunity to earn better income from his land.

“We were selling at a loss at BAMB. They used the South African market to determine the prices here which placed us at on the left footing.”

Phirinyane says South African farmers face fewer obstacles – quelea birds and other pests, floods or drought-induced water stress reducing yields – than Botswanan farmers do. Big South African growers also enjoy advantages of mechanisation and other infrastructure that allow them to produce sorghum and other grains for large and easily-accessible markets at much lower cost.

Even though he had often produced at a loss, Phirinyane never stopped farming. “If we stop, we would not be helping the many Batswana who buy the mealie meal for consumption. I am also selling to the Sebele research centre (which pays better than BAMB).”

Helping each other


Kgalagadi Breweries Limited and Botswana Breweries Limited have announced a new programme called Project Thusanang (which translates as “helping each other through interdependence”). Under the Thusanang programme, the breweries will eventually replace about one million dollars worth of sorghum imported from South Africa each year with 5,000 tonnes produced locally.

The two breweries expect to save costs by switching to local suppliers, but they have pledged that the initiative will be of mutual benefit to the farmers who will be able to sell their grain at premium prices and save on transport costs.

According to the Mokoro Ketsitlile, Corporate Communications Manager for Kgalagadi Breweries, the pilot phase of the project was started in July of 2009 with four farmers at Mmalore Lands in the Southern District.

Two agricultural consultants were contracted to assist with feasibility studies and technical work ranging from studying the current agricultural landscape, assessing and identifying possible clusters and farmer networks, gauging farmers’ requirements as well as the yield potentials of the various agricultural districts of Botswana.

The project was only able to get enough seed to test with the four farmers in Mmalore. Each planted five hectares of a variety of sorghum called NS 5511 and according to Ketsitlile the crop is nearing maturity with harvest expected early this month.

“We chose NS 5511 because it is drought-resistant, it matures faster, the grains are hard and it has a good yield than other kinds of sorghum,” he said.

“We planted very late but still the fields are looking very good so far,” Ketsitlile said with a smile.

“Samples will be taken (in early May) to test the grain potential before harvest. Once harvested, the necessary quality validation is going to be done by BAMB and our current maltsters.”

Room for more buyers

Though it could soon be competing with the breweries for sorghum, BAMB will be testing the quality of the pilot project’s harvest as part of its mandate as a parastatal. Officials at the marketing board, which bought 4,000 tonnes of sorghum in 2009, say they are not fazed by the new deal.

“This is an open market and competition is good for business,” said Jones Proctor, BAMB marketing manager. “We have more contact with farmers and if they offer good prices, we will also increase ours to attract them too.”

BAMB is contracted by government to manage the Strategic Grain Reserve for national food security purposes. Kgalagadi Breweries’ Ketsitlile says it will be at least a year before everything is in place for the breweries to begin buying bulk quantities of local sorghum.

“Our intentions are to test at least two other clusters after Mmalore in order to provide further findings in order to map out feasibility for those areas. We currently have to roll out with caution, as the grain will require further investment towards a malting plant in Botswana in order to process everything locally.”

The breweries say they are working with farmers to increase output. They will give farmers support in terms of farming technology and technical assistance with farm management, crop husbandry and soil management.

According to Ketsitlile they will pay for agro-consultants and for any identified training needs for the farmers. Once the programme has begun in earnest, it will facilitate the sourcing of farming implements, fertilisers, seeds, packaging and pesticides.

Farm communities across the country are anticipating the additional opportunities for local suppliers, the encouragement of entrepreneurship in local communities and support for smallholder farmers.

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By Alma Balopi
GABORONE, May 29 2010 (IPS)

The welcome end to wars in the upper reaches of the Okavango River brings new pressures for development and the risk of unwelcome changes to the health of the river. A joint commission to manage the basin is developing tools to avoid this.

Mokoro dugouts in the Okavango Delta: the Okavango River Commission must meet development needs upstream while protecting water quality downstream. Credit: Wikicommons

Population and development along the Okavango River were long held in check by Namibia’s war of liberation from apartheid South Africa, and decades of civil war in Angola.

Since Namibia’s independence in 1990, several proposals for water use ranging from dams for irrigation and power generation to a canal to transport water to distant urban centres threatened by drought have been put forward. And as Angola’s oil-rich government turns its attention to rural development, it’s likely that other ambitious projects will be put on the table.

The three countries established the Permanent Okavango River Basin Commission (OKACOM) in 1994, charged with working out the safe long-term yield of the basin and laying out criteria for fair allocation and sustainable use of the water.

The completion of a Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis (TDA), presented at OKACOM’s annual meeting in Gaborone on May 27, is an important milestone towards developing a strategic plan for the river basin.

The TDA is a careful scientific and technical assessment of the Okavango – looking at water quantity and quality, the characteristics of ecosystems all along the river, as well as the needs and nature of the communities, politics and institutions the river connects.

Dr Jackie King, a consultant from Cape Town-based research firm Water Matters, explained that if the effects of development along the river are clearly articulated by water managers, engineers and economists, it will enable decision-makers to better understand, for example, how a dam might supply water for irrigation and generate electric power, while altering seasonal flows and harming breeding of important animal species in a downstream wetland.

“We may lose a whole series of ecosystem services like fisheries. We may lose functions of the wetlands like purification of water and we lose the income that people along the river gained,” King said.

In preparing the analysis of the Okavango, several water resource scenarios were developed, with OKACOM identifying specific irrigation, hydroelericity and water abstraction projects. The decision was taken not to approach planning from the viewpoint of maximising one sector or another, but of presenting development scenarios of low, medium and high water use.

“Low water use scenarios do not mean lower standards of living,” said King. “You can have high standards of living with low water use if developments go in different directions. There are ways of improving the water use with low water use.”

King said the frequently poor soils found in the Okavango Basin might suggest that removing large volumes of water for irrigated agriculture was not optimal use of the resource.

Another concern that establishing more extensive agriculture in the Okavango’s catchment area raises is the risk of fertiliser running into the river – if additional nutrient runoff reached the delta, the papyrus reeds that are a dynamic part of the delta’s constantly shifting channels could grow far more rapidly, choking off huge sections.

A dam, even if it were operated to mimic the seasonal flow of water, would prevent sediment from reaching the Delta; without the many thousands of tonnes of sand carried into the Delta each year, wetland channels would tend to become deeper and faster, rather than silting up to create habitat for birds and aquatic life.

The TDA is the basis for the elaboration of a Strategic Action Plan for the Okavango. According to Chaminda Rajapakse, project manager for the Environmental Protection and Sustainable Management of the Okavango River Basin Project (EPSMO), the plan will improve the living standards of people in all three countries through coordinated development while maintaining the environmental integrity of the Okavango River Basin.

“The proposal looked at the basin a whole on where the best places for investment within the basin for best profits and appropriate markets,” Rajapakse explained. EPSMO – funded by the Global Environment Facility in support of OKACOM – was responsible for the TDA.

“OKACOM will establish an accurate monitoring system. Right now there are huge gaps in the monitoring of the information and systems will have to established (to monitor) river sediment and assess of ground water,” he said.

Opportunities for river-friendly wealth creation would have to be identified for communities. This would include developing and executing a programme to promote a basin-wide tourism product, improved livelihoods through sustainable agriculture, a pilot project to demonstrate best practices in livestock management, and training to help maintain sustainable fisheries and expand aquaculture production.

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By Alma Balopi
GABORONE, May 5 2010 (IPS)

On the outskirts of Botswana’s capital, Gaborone, Charity Molefhi is learning the ropes of the horticulture industry.

Tomato picking at GR8 Industries farm. Credit: Alma Balopi/IPS

“I just went into agriculture with no academic qualification but only my passion for farming from growing up in a family of farmers. I am slowly learning many things that I did not know about growing vegetables,” Molefhi says. 

With limited support available to women farmers, Molefhi was fortunate to receive a cash injection of 500,000 pula (about $72,000) from the Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) to start her business, GR8 Minds Industries. CEDA is a company established the government to provide financial and technical support for business development  

She used the money to drill and equip a borehole, procure irrigation equipment, net shading, fencing, farm tools, a car and to construct a building. The funds also provided working capital. 

At the farm, a staff of five men and women are busy picking green peppers while others package tomatoes ready for distribution. The farm is currently using a one and half hectare plot for planting purposes.  

The company supplies several retail outlets and individuals but Molefhi says the market is difficult to penetrate. “Many [retail outlets] just buy from those with the lowest prices regardless of the product quality. That is frustrating for some of us who work very hard,” she says. In particular, cheap South African produce grown on a large scale is a stumbling block in the competition for markets.  

Another drawback has been her lack of knowledge of farming vegetables. At the farm, there are piles of rotten tomatoes and ripe but cracked butternuts – the result of overwatering. But Molefhi is undaunted by the challenges and believes with hard work and endurance, this small piece of land has the potential to contribute to the country’s food basket, which is currently under strain. 

Although Botswana is ranked as a middle-income country – its main sources of revenue are diamonds and beef sales to the European Union – it is heavily reliant on imported foods. Speaking to the local press in April, the Minister of Agriculture, Christian De Graaff, said the country is producing less than half of its basic food requirements.  

According to the ministry’s spokesperson Nathaniel Motshabi, there are currently no tailor-made programmes or government schemes aimed at assisting women in agriculture.  

Motshabi told IPS the only programme specifically catering to women – the Livestock Management and Infrastructure Development Programme – was suspended in November 2009, pending the outcome of an ongoing review. Under the programme, women could access 70 percent of the total costs of their agricultural projects.  

Women’s involvement in agriculture is also limited by gender biased land ownership patterns. Male heirs normally inherit land and while women may be land users, the majority do not have title. According to 1993 agricultural census data, only 36 percent of farm owners were female. Without land rights and other resources like cattle that could be used as collateral, women in Botswana also struggle to get loans and other support services from banks and government schemes.  

However, the ministry is reviewing its policies to encourage greater participation in the sector. Motshabi said government is making efforts to attract the youth to farming as a way of regenerating the declining number of farmers.  

A Young Farmer’s Fund (YFF), introduced in 2007, has shown significant growth since its inception, approving loans for livestock rearing, horticulture, dairy and dog breeding.  

According to CEDA public relations manager, Alina Masenya, the number of projects under the YFF increased from 42 in 2007 to 129 by the end of 2009 with a total value equivalent to $8.3 million.   The fund also provides training and mentoring to beneficiaries to ensure long-term sustainability and the success of funded businesses.

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