The World Food Programme and the Making of Botswana’s Welfare State

Botswana exemplifies the distinctively African form of welfare-state-building which involved the evolution of drought relief policies – in response to what was the primary risk facing the largely rural populations of many African countries – into ‘social protection’ programmes. The World Food Programme (WFP) has long been the primary and underanalysed international agency in this process. This paper examines the role of the WFP in shaping drought relief and recovery policies in Botswana between the mid-1960s (when the WFP joined the new Government of Botswana in responding to the terrible drought that coincided with independence) and 1990s (when the WFP finally withdrew from operations in the now-prospering Botswana) and their evolution into the kinds of programmes (including old-age pensions) more commonly associated with welfare states. The paper examines the interactions between the WFP and Government of Botswana over the design of programmes and their ideological representation. The paper draws primarily on archival research (in London, Rome and Botswana), together with interviews; it forms part of a book manuscript on the welfare state-building in Botswana.