GABORONE, Feb. 6 (Xinhua/GNA) — Botswana’s socioeconomic plans have been disrupted, over the past four years by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to Peggy Serame, the southern African country’s finance minister.
These two major global events are already having an impact on economic development and policy implementation, said Serame on Monday, when presenting the 2024/2025 budget proposal amounting to 102.28 billion pula (about 7.46 billion U.S. dollars) in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana.
“It is against this background that real GDP growth averaged 2.9 percent, lower than the 7.6 percent that was projected for the period under review,” said the finance minister, adding that the lower economic growth rate consequently translated into a cumulative deficit of 27.50 billion pula during this review period.
Serame said these developments compounded Botswana’s unemployment problem and slowed the southern African country’s efforts to reduce income inequality and abject poverty.
In the face of these challenges, Serame said Botswana is committed to formulating optimistic and responsive budgets.
Serame said Botswana’s economy, has become highly vulnerable to climate change, which mainly affects the agriculture and tourism sectors, and therefore requires urgent and targeted responses to climate change.
“Botswana plans to increase the rate of transition from fossil fuels to renewables from 2 percent to 30 percent by 2030,” Serame said, adding that to facilitate these developments, there is a need to scale up climate finance, which is a key enabler of the green transition.
GNA