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.