Social Protection Policies in Africa
Social Protection report in Botswana
The Social Protection Assessment presented by The World Bank (2013) reports that Botswana has emerged from one of the poorest countries in the world to an "upper middle income country with a per capita GDP of $8,533 in 2011" (World Bank). Extreme poverty is down to 6.4% (from 23.4% in 2003). Still, there remain big problems: 31.4% of children under the age of 5 suffer malnutrition; unemployment is 17.8%; the rate of HIV / AIDS was estimated at 23.4% in 2011 -- the second highest rate in the world (World Bank). Botswana has many social protection programs, but many are small and ineffective; an example is the "Destitute Persons" program, in which "only a small fraction" of the very poor receive assistance, and a "large share of the budget goes to administration" (World Bank). That said, The World Bank says 84,000 families can be lifted out of "absolute poverty" by 2016.
That seems a lofty goal given that many families "…in absolute poverty are left out" of social protection programs; those programs are only designed to help "some families" (World Bank)
Social Justice / Human Rights / Marginalization in Africa
African intellectual Claude Ake writes that when you focus on literacy levels and school...
Indeed, Africa is being "…marginalized by developments in science, technology, and production"; in the past, African leaders went to great lengths to reach out internationally, hoping to get resources from the industrialized nations (Ake). But while hoping to diversify their economies to become independent through this outreach, it "accomplished nothing"; in fact, African countries, including Botswana, reached independence with "…no agenda" for the realization of development, Ake writes, which partially explains the marginalization of many of its countries.
Toyin Falola asserts that the U.S. has exploited Africa (in a "scramble for oil" and other resources) and in fact in terms of marginalization of Africa, the U.S. relationship with Africa's sugar plantations led to plantations being established in the U.S. "Eventually," Falola said in a speech at the University of Delaware, "coffee, sugar and tobacco became major consumer products in the 17th century and spurred the Atlantic economy," which desperately needed labor to harvest those products. "This led to the African diaspora as a result of slavery," and 13 million African slaves were brought to America (Falola, 2006).
Wangari…
