This book examines how Botswana overcame the legacies of exceptional resource deficiency, colonial neglect and a harsh physical environment to transform itself from one of the poorest nations of the world to a middle income economy with significant reductions in people's poverty. It reviews the interactions of economic, social and institutional policies and how these reinforced one another to produce the poverty outcomes that they did from the initial socio-economic conditions. In particular it illustrates how the chosen development strategies consistently tied social and economic policies to achieve, on the one hand, re-distribution, protection and reproduction and, on the other, investment in production and human capabilities. The substantive areas covered include trends in economic development strategies and outcome; social policies and strategies and their impact on poverty and productive capacity; income and wealth distribution; the role of organized interest groups in policy development; and institutional development, state capacity and politics.

An examination of how Botswana overcame the legacies of exceptional resource deficiency and colonial neglect, to transform itself from one of the poorest nations of the world to a middle income economy. Contributions review how economic, social and institutional policies interacted to produce successful poverty reduction.