This week, I traveled to a remote village near the furthest northern edge of the Okavango River, where the farmers of Xakao faced a problem: elephants raiding their crops and cattle pasture.
Conservationists and tour guides in the region also worried about conflicts when the wildlife central to the health of the ecosystem and their livelihoods encountered humans. All were concerned about the changing climate and availability of water – vital to people, cattle, and elephants alike. Thanks to our partnership with a local organization, EcoExist, U.S. assistance was tailored specifically to the needs of the community and conditions – and today, these worries are fewer.
The outlook is brighter. The United States, through USAID’s Resilient Waters program grantee EcoExist, helped farmers increase their crop yields using climate-smart agricultural methods, mapped “elephant corridors” that diverted elephants away from humans, and supported Botswana’s land. The farmers’ surplus grain, I learned, is being bought up at premium prices for domestic craft beer production.
Further upriver in Namibia and Angola, the U.S. funded projects that not only resulted in better drinking water for the residents there, but also helped ensure that water would remain readily available for years to come for all three million people who rely on the Okavango River Basin, including those in Botswana. The U.S. government doesn’t just give away money and walk away.
We work with the needs of each region – down to the village level – on what they need to not just get by, but to grow and prosper. The visit also affirmed for me that it will take many more successes, across years, and across borders for Botswana and the region to reach the shared vision of prosperity Americans and Batswana want to see achieved. Fortunately, there is already a plan in place for that vision to unfold. Earlier this month in my capacity as the U.S. Representative to the Southern African Development Community (SADC), I took part in the signing of an agreement between USAID, the development arm of the U.S. Government, and SADC.
The agreement set aside nearly a quarter billion dollars in U.S. assistance – about 3 billion Pula – to fund projects that spur economic growth, cleaner and cheaper energy, education, sustainable water resource management, good governance, and health across Botswana and the entire Southern Africa region over the next five years. If the success I saw firsthand in Xakao demonstrates at the village level the integrated and interconnected partnership the U.S. fosters between its partners, I’m excited to see what the United States, Botswana, and our regional brothers and sisters will accomplish in the years ahead. And I am delighted the United States will continue to partner until we achieve these important goals.
HOWARD VAN VRANKEN* U.S. Ambassador to Botswana
