Priority Area 2: Enhanced environmental sustainability and adoption of climate change adaptation and mitigation technologies

4.2 Priority Area 2: Enhanced environmental sustainability and adoption of climate change adaptation and mitigation technologies.

Crop productivity, especially in smallholder farming is very low compared to the commercial sector. Productivity can be increased by more than three times through the use of appropriate tillage systems. Currently most smallholder farmers use deep ploughing tillage systems, which is not only expensive, but also poor at conserving moisture. This result in poor yields and smallholder farmers are only able to survive through the use of heavy subsidies from programmes such as ISPAAD. There is a need to switch to appropriate tillage systems that are not only less expensive, but also conserve moisture and hence increase yields. This will ensure that smallholder crop farming is profitable even without heavy reliance on subsidies. These subsidies are clearly not sustainable as government is faced with dwindling revenues especially from its main source, the mineral sector.

Botswana’s natural ecosystems require special attention to issues of land use, water resource management and, increasingly to effectively mitigate the impacts of climate change on the livelihoods and health. The likely effects of climate change in all sectors are not yet well known and until this gap is filled the development of appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures is not possible.

FAO assistance is needed to achieve the following outputs:

FAO assistance will be required in helping farmers adopt appropriate tillage systems. This could be done by funding both selected farmers and extension officers on benchmarking tours in neighbouring countries where these tillage systems have been proved to be successful in improving yields. It is expected that as the tillage systems produce better yields in the selected farms other farmers will easily adopt them leading to increased agricultural output and productivity and hence improved food security.

GoB of Botswana has a role in ensuring that all UN conventions are signed and that it develops adaptation and mitigation strategies against climate change. FAO assistance will be required in analysing the likely impacts of climate change on the agricultural sector. It will then be possible to develop appropriate mitigation and adaptation measures to climate change. This will improve natural resource management, conservation and adaptation.

4.3 Priority Area 3: Reduction of social inequality through gender-sensitive programming and women’s empowerment

4.3.1 Outcome 3.1 Strengthen institutional capacities for women social empowerment

Women face a number of challenges compared to their male counterparts. For instance, female headed households are mainly poor, and in agriculture as well as other sectors of the economy, women are subjected to less paying jobs. This means that their incomes are low, leading to poverty. The greatest challenge facing the country is to ensure equal access of both men and women to employment opportunities. This calls for mindset change as GoB has made legal changes to ensure equal access, but cultural practices impede effective implementation of these legislations. There is therefore need to strengthen institutional capacity of organisations involved in women social empowerment so that they perform their tasks better and hence improve the status of women in the society.

FAO assistance is therefore needed to achieve the followings outputs:

Output 3.1.1 Inclusion of women in mainstream jobs

While GoB has made significant progress in the area of equality between men and women and women’s empowerment, challenges still remain. Gender equality and women’s empowerment have been identified as crucial development issues in Vision 2016 and NDP 10 and other key documents of GoB. FAO and other UN agencies’ assistance in terms of women empowerment will be in support of civil society organisations that promote the participation of women in national development. In order to promote gender equality and women’s’ empowerment, this issue should be taken as high priority by GoB by elevating the Department of Gender into a fully-fledged ministry. FAO assistance will be required in supporting and formation of women’s groups involved in agricultural production.

Child labour, especially in agriculture is a major concern when it comes to protecting the rights of children in Botswana. The FAO and its sister UN agencies assistance is needed in order to meet the UNDAF outcome of ensuring protective and supportive environment for children with reduced child labour, abuse, neglect and discrimination. Specific assistance from the FAO will be to raise the level of awareness about child labour in agricultural development policies and programmes.

Information on gender issues is scanty; in order to raise awareness on gender issues there is need to publish gender based information regularly. The assistance to be provided by the FAO should include capacity building for organisations involved in collection and dissemination of gender based information.