Rural development in Botswana: a qualitative view

Since Botswana's independence in 1966, the debate as to what that status could possibly mean for such a small country so geographically, economically and politically integrated into the sub-system dominated by the Republic of South Africa, has gone on apace. Indeed, even before formal independence, the mould was set by the sub-title of a work by E. S. Munger, Bechuanaland: Pan African Outpost or Bantu Homeland.' The search for the meaning or content of independence has since centred overwhelmingly upon the position of Botswana within the sub-system and particularly on her status viz-a-viz the Republic. Without reiterating all the arguments here, it seems that strict limits must be set to the 'content of independence' in this subcontinental context.2 However, this pessimism has centred on political and economic relations with other countries to the exclusion of what independence could mean in terms of a more internal perspective. Since the majority of Botswana's people are located in the rural areas, (c.570,000 as against 65,000 in urban settings in 1971)3, I would suggest that independence has also to be measured in terms of what it has meant or could mean to the Batswana as individuals and communities. For instance, the real meaning of independence may lie in the possibility of an effective programme for rural development. J. P. Nettl has written of the two approaches most commonly taken by postcolonial states in tackling the problems they face in the struggle to develop. 'Following independence, the revolutionary countries generally opted for sociopolitical priorities, the "democratic" ones for a more distinctly economic or economistic solution'.4 So far as the economistic states were concerned, sociopolitical factors were either seen as prior conditions for or as subsequent results