Children（https://lehikeng.org/en/blog/tag/children）
Children Represent Close to 50% of Botswana's Poor Population
Time reading: 1 min read
By
Nonofo Joel（https://lehikeng.org/en/blog/author/nonofo-joel）
Nonofo Joel
Nonofo Joel, Head of Growth at Fine Media, is an inbound marketing expert committed to business innovation and success. He passionately advances human capital development across Africa as a dedicated volunteer on the Lehikeng Board.
When the world thinks of Ngamiland, Botswana, it is easy to picture mokoro trails, abundant wildlife, and the extraordinary wetlands of the Okavango Delta. Tourism has helped make the region visible to the world.
Yet beyond the safari routes is another reality that receives far less attention: many children are growing up with overlapping disadvantages that no travel brochure can show.
For a child, poverty is not an abstract line in a national budget. It can mean waking up hungry, walking a long distance to reach school, living without reliable water or sanitation, falling ill without timely care, or arriving in Standard One without the early learning experiences that better-resourced children have already received.
When several of these disadvantages occur together, they do more than make one difficult day. They shape health, learning, confidence and opportunity across an entire childhood.
Botswana's development achievements are real. So is the unequal distribution of opportunity. Supporting Lehikeng matters because national progress reaches children through local systems: a meal served consistently, a safe place to learn, a trusted adult who mentors, and a community organization that understands which families are being missed. Lehikeng is not a substitute for public responsibility or broad economic reform. It is a practical, community-rooted part of the answer.
This article explains what multidimensional child poverty looks like in Botswana, why children in rural and remote communities face heightened risks, and how Lehikeng's work in Maun can interrupt some of the pathways through which poverty is passed from one generation to the next.
It also invites individuals, companies, foundations, churches and community allies to support a locally led response.
A national success story with a child poverty gap
Botswana is classified as an upper-middle-income country and is widely respected for the progress it has made since independence.
That national label, however, describes an average. It does not tell us whether a particular child ate before school, has a safe toilet at home, can reach a clinic, owns learning materials or has an adult available to help with homework.
This is why child-poverty researchers look beyond household income.
A family may sit above an income threshold and still be unable to secure several essentials for its children. Conversely, a household may have very limited cash but receive some services through public or community systems.
A multidimensional approach asks a more direct question: in how many parts of life is a child being denied the conditions needed to survive, learn, develop and participate with dignity?
What the evidence tells us
The latest available analytical picture compiled by UNICEF Botswana and national statistics shows that children represent roughly 43 percent to 50 percent of Botswana's overall poor population.
The national multidimensional child-poverty analysis, based primarily on 2021 household data, estimated that 49.8 percent of children（https://www.unicef.org/executiveboard/media/40021/file/2026-PL14-Botswana-CPD-EN-2026-06-08-advance-copy.pdf） under 18 experienced at least two severe deprivations at the same time.
It is a\also reported that about 44 percent experienced severe multidimensional poverty（https://www.undp.org/sites/g/files/zskgke326/files/2025-10/mpireport2025en_0.pdf）, defined here as three or more overlapping deprivations.
The figures at a glance
Children account for approximately 43 percent to 50 percent of Botswana's population living in poverty.
About 49 percent of children under 18 experienced two or more severe deprivations.
About 44 percent of children experienced three or more overlapping deprivations, the threshold used here for severe multidimensional poverty.
Direct monetary poverty affected about 19.9 percent of children.
An additional 42.6 percent of children lived above the monetary poverty line but still experienced severe daily deprivations, showing why income alone is an incomplete measure.
Multidimensional child poverty was estimated at 68 percent in rural areas（https://www.unicef.org/esa/media/8771/file/UNICEF-Botswana-Multidimensional-Child-Poverty-Report-2021.pdf） .
The estimated rate was 41 percent in urban villages.
The estimated rate was 27 percent in cities and towns.
The three-way geographic divide matters profoundly in Ngamiland. A child in a rural community faced a measured multidimensional poverty rate of about 68 percent, compared with 41 percent in urban villages and 27 percent in cities and towns.
Distance raises the cost of almost everything: food, transport, school attendance, access to clinics, programme delivery, and the time caregivers must spend to reach services.
A service can exist on paper yet remain practically inaccessible to a child who lives far away, lacks transport or cannot afford the indirect costs of reaching it.
What multidimensional poverty does to a child
Hunger undermines both growth and learning
Food insecurity is not only the discomfort of an empty stomach.
When a child's diet is insufficient or lacks variety over time, the consequences can include poor growth, weakened immunity, low energy and difficulty concentrating.
Available national estimates place stunting among children under five at roughly 21 percent to 25 percent, close to one child in four. Because nutrition surveys are not conducted every year, the final published version should pair the chosen value with its survey year.
The underlying lesson is clear: chronic undernutrition can affect physical growth and cognitive development long before its effects appear in a school report.
In the classroom, hunger can look like tiredness, irritability, absence or apparent lack of interest. A child cannot be expected to engage fully with a lesson while the body is focused on getting through the day.
A reliable meal is therefore not separate from education. It is part of the foundation that makes learning possible.
Water, sanitation and healthcare shape survival
A child who lacks access to safe water and sanitation is more exposed to diarrhoeal disease and recurrent infections.
In remote settings, a manageable illness can become dangerous when transport to a health facility is delayed or unaffordable. Available estimates place Botswana's under-five mortality rate in a range of approximately 33 to 45 deaths per 1,000 live births, depending on the reporting year and source.
Neonatal mortality has been reported at about 18 deaths per 1,000 live births, meaning that many of these deaths occur within the first month of life. These indicators reinforce the importance of maternal and newborn care, nutrition, safe water, sanitation, preventive services and timely treatment.
The early-learning gap opens before primary school
The first years of life are a period of rapid brain development. Conversation, play, stories, songs, problem-solving and warm interaction help children build language, memory, attention and social confidence.
Yet available gross pre-primary enrolment estimates range from about 21.4 percent to 24 percent for children aged three to five. That leaves most young children outside structured early childhood education before primary school begins.
Learning poverty continues at age 10
The learning gap does not disappear automatically once a child enters school. An estimated 53 percent of children by age 10 are unable to read and understand a simple, age-appropriate text proficiently.
Learning poverty reflects more than classroom performance. It can be shaped by early-learning access, language, teaching quality, attendance, nutrition, disability support, household resources and the time adults have available to help a child learn.
The disadvantage is cumulative. A child who begins school behind may find early lessons harder, receive less positive feedback, repeat a grade or disengage.
The problem is not a lack of ability. It is unequal access to the experiences and support that allow ability to develop.
This is why education support and mentorship（https://lehikeng.org/programs） should respond to both learning needs and the wider conditions affecting attendance, confidence and concentration.
Poverty creates pressure across the whole household
Children do not experience poverty in isolation from their caregivers. A household affected by unemployment, illness, disability, bereavement, high transport costs or unstable income must constantly make impossible trade-offs.