Shifting the balance? : towards sustainable local government, decentralization and district development in Botswana : an evaluation of the Swedish - Botswana Co-operation Programme on District Development Support, phase IV

Evaluation report of the Swedish-Botswana Co-operation Programme on District Development Support. Decentralization of the government has been an important political priority in Botswana over the last 10-20 years. In order to prepare local government officials for their tasks, SIDA has supported the Fourth District Development Services Support Programme. The objectives of the programme were threefold: promotion of further decentralization; to contribute to a more even distribution of economic and social resources among the people; to enhance implementation capacity of local authorities. Out of three major components of the programme (training and organizational development; district physical planning; support to large-scale mapping) two were successful, the exception being the support to district physical planning. In the training component special praise is given to the holistic approach used in the training of village water supply staff. The evaluation team points it out as a sound model that should be adopted by other departments that do not have well developed human resource development plans.