03 | THE RESULTS – OTHER FUNDING
DRIVING GREEN GROWTH ACROSS BOTSWANA
Policy-based loans (PBL) provide tailored support for government reform agendas. In 2023, the OPEC Fund provided US$532 million in policy-based lending to partner countries worldwide.
Botswana, a landlocked country in southern Africa known for its stunning landscapes such as the Kalahari Desert and the UNESCO-listed Okavango Delta, is considered highly vulnerable to climate change due to increasingly erratic rainfall. Floods and droughts are compounding the already substan- tial fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, which in 2020 brought tourism to a standstill and caused the economy to contract by more than 8.5 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund. Although Botswana returned to growth in 2021, the crisis revealed key structural vulnerabilities that the government is now determined to address. Via its Economic Recovery and Transformation Plan, the government aims to strengthen responses to future pandemics, build the foundations for sustainable green growth and tackle regulatory constraints that may be holding back investments from the private sector. In support of this plan, the OPEC Fund signed a US$100 million loan — the Botswana Programmatic Economic Resilience and Green Recovery policy-based loan — during a visit by President Abdulhamid Alkhalifa to the capital, Gaborone, in January 2023. On the micro level, a key component of this program is the Integrated Transport Project, which aims to significantly upgrade the infrastructure and management of transport in the Greater Gaborone area. On the macro level, the program aims to help Botswana become a high-income country by 2036, driven mainly by green growth.
US$100 MN OPEC Fund loan
2036 Target year to become a high-income country
US$350+ MN Annual cost of land degradation in Botswana
(Source: World Bank Group)
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