The latest official statistics show an improvement in food security but the country remains far from free of hunger with 47.2 percent of the population still experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity.
Statistics Botswana says the share of people who are food secure or only mildly food insecure rose to 52.8 percent in 2023/24, even as 28.1 percent of the population remained moderately food insecure and 19.1 percent faced severe food insecurity.
New official figures suggest Botswana is recovering from the sharp food insecurity spike seen in 2021/22, but nearly half the population still lives with some level of food insecurity.
The report says the latest findings were drawn from the Quarterly Multi-Topic Survey and the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES), with data referring to the previous 12 months. It notes that food security has improved in the last two reporting years after worsening around the pandemic period.
The share of people who were food secure or mildly food insecure had fallen from 49.2 percent in 2018/19 to 46.7 percent in 2021/22, before recovering to 50.6 percent in 2022/23 and 52.8 percent in 2023/24.
Statistics Botswana says this ‘suggests that while there were declines in 2020/21 and 2021/22, food security improved in the last two years of the reporting period.’
Moderate food insecurity has remained relatively stable over time, though still at worrying levels. It rose from 28.6 percent in 2018/19 to 30.9 percent in 2020/21, dropped to 27.1 percent in 2021/22, increased again to 29.2 percent in 2022/23, and eased to 28.1 percent in 2023/24.
Severe food insecurity shows the clearest improvement in the latest data. After rising sharply to 26.2 percent in 2021/22, it fell to 20.2 percent in 2022/23 and then to 19.1 percent in 2023/24. The report says the 2021/22 spike could possibly have been linked to COVID-19 effects on household food security.
The official figures also show that hardship remains more severe outside urban centres. In rural areas, severe food insecurity stood at 25.1 percent in 2023/24, compared with 18.4 percent in urban villages and 11.5 percent in cities and towns.