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Lord Giddens: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, on initiating the debate. Africa gets a terrible press in western countries. It needs some shining light, and, along with Ghana, Senegal and some other countries, Botswana is one of those shining lights. It is in fact a favoured child of the World Bank and the IMF, even though it is one of the few countries in Africa that has never deployed their structural adjustment policies. Some might say that there is no accident there.
I met the president, Festus Mogae, a few months ago and had some interesting discussions with him. I was very impressed with the rational and sane nature of the policies he outlined. I think that it was a very balanced analysis of the opportunities facing the country, and also the problems that it has. Botswana, as the noble Baroness said, has a small population, but in some ways it is a model of development, economically and politically—economically because it has had a high growth rate for a long time, and politically because it enjoys notable stability, especially against the background of sub-Saharan Africa in general.
The country could not be said to have a diversified economy. It is heavily dependent on diamond mining—about one-third of GDP and 70 per cent of export earnings come from this source. However, its success is due to the fact that these resources have been very well managed and the country, as a whole, has followed sound macroeconomic policies. Of course, the fact that it has a stable parliamentary system has made a lot of difference. All foreign observers agree that elections have been freely and fairly contested and held on schedule. As the noble Baroness mentioned, it has also pursued sound environmental policies and its game parks are a model for other parts of Africa.
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However, the country has serious problems. Well over 40 per cent of the population still lives below the absolute poverty line, although that proportion has come down from an even higher proportion. In the document to which the noble Baroness alluded, Vision 2016, the Government want to reduce this proportion to 27 per cent in the short term and by 2016 wants the country to be the first African country free of absolute poverty—subsistence poverty. The World Bank, I think rightly, assesses that the country, all other things being equal—and they are not all that equal—has a decent chance of achieving that.
Secondly, the unemployment rate is still high—more than 20 per cent in some areas. Unfortunately, a good deal of that unemployment is long-term. Thirdly, levels of economic inequality are unacceptably high. Many commentators have focused on that. There is a wealthy elite. A lot of people live in poverty, and the division between them is still much too big. It needs to be bridged.
Fourthly, of course there is the issue of AIDS. To their credit, the Government have followed a quite different policy from South Africa and have, I think, been successful in providing antiviral drugs to their population. They have had a very enlightened policy in that area, of course with assistance, as has been mentioned.
The latest statistics show that the country no longer has the world's highest HIV infection rate, but many people still think it remains on the edge of potential disaster. I hope the Minister will comment on this because assessment of the impact of AIDS is quite difficult. There are divergences between different commentators on the actual level of HIV infection and AIDS in the country, and, of course, people who survive with HIV are a measure of success, not just a measure of failure. The issue is more complicated than it might appear at first sight.
I have quite a few points which I would like the Minister at least to consider commenting on. First, what actually can be done to promote diversification? The Government are, quite rightly, seeking to diversify the economy, but it is difficult. Many people have expressed the view that one of the reasons for the difficulties of diversification is the size of the public sector in the country. Does the Minister share that view? I suspect, however, that it is the policies followed that need some outside assistance and advice.
Secondly, Botswana is a low risk country in terms of international risk assessment. Moody's Investor Services gave the country an A-plus credit rating recently. However, FDI is not well developed. Thirdly, the country speaks English. Can it make progress in the world of information technology as some poorer countries have done quite effectively? Fourthly, what is the Minister's assessment of the AIDS issue, especially in relation to inequality? There is quite a controversy among students of the country about whether that will have an impact on equality, quite apart from all the other potentially catastrophic effects that it could have.
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The Prime Minister and the Chancellor have, rightly, put Africa at the top of the agenda. They are to be congratulated on that. Of course, they have concentrated, as have the entire Government, on the more problematic areas of Africa, but I hope that the Government and the Minister will recognise that it is just as important to try to help those countries which are becoming successful, because they blaze a path for others in future.
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Lord Chidgey: My Lords, since independence, the Government of Botswana have made a determined effort to raise education and skill levels and to bring added and diversified value to the economy. Unusually among African states, the Government offer 10 years' free education to all children. Remarkably, enrolment rates in primary and junior secondary schools are close to 100 per cent. Most significantly, girl pupils are believed to outnumber boy pupils at both levels.
Since independence, as my noble friend Lady Tonge mentioned, adult illiteracy has fallen below 25 per cent. That compares to 40 per cent on average for sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. In 1966, an overwhelmingly rural population depended on agriculture and livestock for a livelihood. At that time, only a minority had access to proper healthcare, safe water and schooling. By the 1990s, infant mortality had fallen to fewer than 50 per 1,000 live births, compared with the average in sub-Saharan Africa of more than 90. Life expectancy had risen from a little over 40 in 1966 to 67 years by 1996. From almost no access to healthcare, about 90 per cent of the rural population now lives close to a primary health post and village water supply schemes cover almost the entire country. That is some success story.
However, it is an immense tragedy that, during the past decade, many of the achievements in economic, social, educational and health development have been put at risk through the rapid and inexorable spread of HIV/AIDS. Botswana is one of the countries most affected by HIV/AIDS in the world. Average life expectancy, which had risen from 40 to 67 years by the mid-1990s, has now fallen dramatically to only 32 years.
The enormous direct costs of care and treatment are accompanied by devastating human and social effects, but underlying those effects is a deeper, long-term loss to the economy. In neighbouring South Africa, for example, the HIV/AIDS attrition rate in the labour force in the mineral extractive industries can cause a 100 per cent turnover of employees every four years. There is no reason to believe that Botswana is faring any better. It is more likely that it is faring far worse.
It is clear that Botswana's continued progress is threatened by the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but there looms another threat to Botswana's economic and social development. The very positive per capita GDP of $US 9,200 masks a large disparity in income
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distribution. In a country already prone to drought, as has been mentioned, 40 per cent of households in rural areas are believed to be living in poverty.
We tend to consider global warming in the context of melting ice caps and rising sea levels threatening low-lying island and coastal communities. We should not, however, overlook the potential impact of global warming on Africa, particularly the semi-arid areas of southern Africa. The potential impact of global warming in the region has been the subject of studies at Oxford University, the University of East Anglia and throughout Botswana by specialist consultants. Most worrying is the predicted effect on the Kalahari dune fields, which cover 2.5 million square kilometres from the northern end of South Africa through Angola, Botswana and Namibia to western Zimbabwe and western Zambia. Some computer study models are now predicting that those dune fields, currently stable under vegetation, will start to erode and move as rainfall decreases and wind speeds rise under global warming. If the Kalahari sands start to shift as predicted, tens, or, possibly, hundreds of thousands of already impoverished people in rural communities will be affected.
Because of Botswana's GDP strength, the United Kingdom and the European Union are now the only substantial providers of development assistance. It is therefore vital that we do not lose sight of threats from global warming because of the immediate HIV/AIDS crisis. We must take a longer view of our development assistance. We must ensure that the policies and programmes that we promote, sponsor and support in Botswana are designed to address the impact from global warming. We must not ignore the threat of existing semi-arid areas turning into deserts well before the end of this century.
I look forward to hearing my noble friend's response to what I consider to be important and far-reaching concerns.
8.06 pm
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