Jamaica and Botswana
By Martin Henry
BOTSWANA NOW has the prettiest girl in the world and one of the fastest growing economies as well. Jamaica has more pretty girls per capita than anywhere else in the world. If you don't believe your own eyes, check the top 10 of Miss Universe and Miss World year after year. But we have no growth. We will have to pick up our atlas to find out where Botswana is. Before that country made the news here by advertising for our professionals to come, at attractive salaries, to help them sustain growth, and now winning Miss Universe, how many Jamaicans would even have heard of Botswana? Botswana is a land-locked country in Southern Africa surrounded by South Africa to the south, Zimbabwe to the east and Namibia to the north and west. On the world stage Jamaica is much better known for our music, achievements in sports, big names like Garvey, Marley and Manley, our loud voice in international forums and our migrants good and bad. We are known as a major tourist destination, and for world-class products like Blue Mountain coffee and high potency ganja. Botswana is a huge country by Jamaican standards. At 231,818 square miles, the country is 52 times larger than ours! But that vast area is mostly desert and swamp. From their tourism-oriented website we gather that "its territory consists almost entirely of a broad, flat, arid sub-tropical plateau, though there are hills in the eastern part of the country." In the south is the Kalahari, a semi-desert region which is home to the nomadic Bushmen or San people who subsist as hunters. In the north-west of the country, the Okavango river empties into the sands of the Kalahari forming the largest inland river delta in the world swamplands, or if you prefer more modern terminology, wetlands, with a rich variety of wildlife. Another major geographical feature is the area of salt pans, larger than Jamaica, in the east-central part of the country. Land use data indicate arable land, 2 per cent meadows and pastures, 75 per cent forest and woodland, 2 per cent; other, 21 per cent. In this vast, inhospitable land, about 1.4 million people live, compared to 2.5 million in Jamaica's 4,411 square miles. The country got its name from the Bantu-speaking Tswana peoples who moved into the area about 2,000 years ago and now form the vast majority of the population (only about 60,000 San and 14,000 whites). As Bechuanaland it became a British protectorate in 1885 to foil the intrusion of the Dutch Boers. The country became independent in 1966. English is the official language of government, but most people speak Setswana. Botswana, like Jamaica, is a member of the Commonwealth. Quite apart from the harsh physical geography, a population at sub-critical mass in all that space, and the problems of ethnic diversity, many things are not pretty for Botswana. Life expectancy is a mere 51.7 years. Jamaica is up there with the developed world at 74.1 years (the USA is 76.4). The overall adult literacy rate is just about 70 per cent; for Jamaica it is 85 per cent. But there is a big gender gap for literacy in Botswana: men, 80.5 per cent; women, 60 per cent. The situation is narrower in the reverse for Jamaica: men, 80.8 per cent; women, 89.1 per cent. We are doing considerably better with infant mortality. The infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births for Jamaica is 10; for Botswana it is 40. While we have eradicated malaria in the last generation, Botswana is registering 2,089 cases per 100,000 of population. We are down to 4.4 tuberculosis cases per 100,000; Botswana has 390. This vast country has only 888 km of railroads and 11,514 km of roads with only 1,600 km paved and a further 1,700 km gravelled. But she has 100 airports and airfields. Their telephone system has only 26,000 units. There is no TV station but some 20 radio stations. The country faces some serious environmental problems: over-grazing, desertification, limited fresh water resources, droughts, and wind-blown sand and dust obscuring visibility. The unemployment rate, at 25 per cent, like ours, is unacceptably high. Unlike much of sub-Saharan Africa, Botswana enjoys a stable multi-party democracy. She has a bi-cameral Parliament and an elected president as head of state and head of government. What is remarkable about this country is its consistent growth - against the odds. Average annual percentage rate of change in GDP, 1960-1995, is 6.1 per cent; for Jamaica it is 0.9 per cent with many years of "negative growth". No trade deficit Per capita GDP for Botswana in 1960 was US$238; for Jamaica, US$1,154. Today the figures are: Botswana, US$5,611; Jamaica, US$3,801.Botswana has no trade deficit, a low inflation rate, debt at only 20 per cent of the annual budget, and a budget deficit of only 17 per cent. "The economy has historically been based on cattle raising and crops. Agriculture today provides a livelihood for more than 80 per cent of the population but supplies only about 50 per cent of food needs and accounts for only 5 per cent of GDP. Subsistence farming and cattle raising predominate. The driving force behind the rapid economic growth of the 1970s and 1980s has been the mining industry. This sector, mostly on the strength of diamonds, has gone from generating 25 per cent of GDP in 1980 to 39 per cent in 1994." They have their diamonds, but the Botswana economy has been hampered by a sluggish diamond market in recent times. We have our bauxite, better climate and lands, easier access to the world's largest and richest markets, and a world-class natural tourism product. We have better education and a population speaking the lingua franca of the world - English. We have better information and communication infrastructure, and a better road network. We are on the map better known in the world. "Jamaica" is an international trademark. We have a large migrant population willing to root for yard. Except for some miners in South Africa, Botswana has none. We share a similar parliamentary demo-cracy. Jamaica has a better UNDP gender development index and a better overall human development index. We are No 84 of 174 countries; Botswana is No 97, leading sub-Saharan Africa, except for South Africa at No 89. We have far more advantages than Botswana for sustained economic growth. The question then is why are we so miserably failing to grow? Perhaps for this year's Emancipation Day/Independence Day season we should invite President Sir Ketumile Masire and Miss Universe Mpule Kwelagobe. The Ghanaian coupist Jerry Rawlins, having no experience with growth, had nothing useful to tell us when he came. Undoubtedly our attachments to the failed systems and leaders of this world, in the name of various solidarities, have something to do with our stagnation. Only weeks ago, Winnie Mandela came here to announce her detestation of the Americans to ovation, even while we stretch the beggar's hand to our most successful and generous neighbour. * Martin Henry is a communications consultant. 
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