One of the key developments in Botswana in 2021 was the Government’s ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This was a significant milestone, as it recognizes – and intends to mitigate – the challenges that those with disabilities in Botswana face to exercising their rights to access basic services, including infrastructure, transport and information.

Like rest of the world, throughout 2021 Botswana continued to grapple with COVID-19, which added to existing challenges and impacted every aspect of people’s lives, including their education, access to basic services, ability to work, personal safety, physical and mental health, social lives, and their environment. The UNCT continued to keep COVID- 19 issues high on the agenda, both with a view to supporting the countrywide efforts to mitigate the spread and effects of the virus, and internally to support staff. The United Nations also supported the country to procure vaccines via COVAX and to ensure accelerated and equitable vaccine roll-out to protect the populations most at risk of severe illness and death.

In 2021, the United Nations COVID-19 coordination and response mechanisms that had been set up in 2020 were modified to ensure coordination between the Government and other development partners and the United Nations system.

During the 2017 – 2021 reporting period, the United Nations in Botswana supported the Government by contributing to advocacy and the development of policies which protect the rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups. These include:

• Protection of the rights of persons living with HIV/AIDS – building on the work established by the Government of Botswana’s launch of its third National Strategic Framework for HIV/AIDS (June 2019).

• Persons with disabilities – ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (August 2021).

• Supporting the LGBTIQ+ community – the Court of Appeal upheld on appeal the 2019 judgement to criminalize homosexuality (29 November, 2021).

• Advocacy for policy change regarding GBV. Following on from the Botswana Police Service adopting (2020) a policy discouraging the withdrawal of GBV-related cases after they have been reported, the country has established special, friendly courts to handle GBV cases and to treat them as urgent applications, ensuring their expedited management and disposal (December 2020 to February 2021).

• Advocacy for countries with smaller populations to achieve equal access to COVID-19 resources and vaccines.

During 2021, the United Nations contributed to the delivery of Outcome 2 through new ways of working and partnerships, as follows:

• Developing innovative partnerships with development partners including the private sector, civil society organizations and academia.

• Supporting the building of sustainable and resilient communities through direct support at community and national levels including support of biogas and BORAVAST coal production.

• Ensuring improved service delivery through use of innovative technologies and strategic partnerships and improved early warning systems including COVID-19 vaccine vehicle ‘drive-through’ campaigns.

To improve availability of quality disaggregated data for the SDGs, during the 2017 – 2021 reporting period the
United Nations in Botswana:

• Worked to ensure the 2022 Housing & Population census will update key data gaps including those relating to persons with disabilities, to facilitate accurate SDG monitoring.

• Supported innovative technology use to improve real-time monitoring, including of COVID-19.

• Facilitated key programme reviews and evaluations to improve service delivery and to tailor programmes to emerging needs.

• Improved the availability of SDG indicator data by 16.5 per cent, from data being available on 55 out of 158 indicators (34.8 per cent) in 2017 to 81 out of 158 indicators (51.3 per cent) in 2019.