Project Case Study
Building public support for reforms in Botswana through building the media
Improving reporting on economic reforms to build public support
In the mid-1990s, Botswana began to tackle a range of politically contentious reforms as part of a shift from a mixed, partially planned economy to one in which the private sector played a more prominent role.
The success of these, however, depended to a large extent on the public support for them. As such, the media was one of the most important players as a vehicle to build that public support.
To this end, we were asked by the Government of Botswana in 2007 to train many of Botswana’s leading journalists in how to most effectively understand and cover economic reforms.
This training drew on a large body of earlier work on communications development that we had undertaken in countries as diverse as the Ukraine, Tanzania and India.
The work formed part of our overarching programme providing assistance to the Government of Botswana with preparing an economic reform Master Plan as part of the country’s attempts at economic diversification and employment generation.
