Women and Youth Entrepreneurship in Botswana

The study on women and youth entrepreneurship in Botswana investigated the environmental factors that affect the performance of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) with specific focus on microenterprises (defined as those that employ less than 6 people including owner and annual turnover of less than P60,000) and the extent to which the microenterprises have utilized the government institutional credit and capacity building programmes to expand their enterprises.

The disparity in compliance with sustainability policies: the mining industry and the financial industry in South Africa

Magister Legum - LL

Estimating the cost of care giving on caregivers for people living with HIV and AIDS in Botswana: a cross-sectional study

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Community home-based care is the Botswana Government's preferred means of providing care for people living with HIV (PLHIV). However, primary (family members) or volunteer (community members) caregivers experience poverty, are socially isolated, endure stigma and psychological distress, and lack basic care-giving education. Community home-based care also imposes considerable costs on patients, their caregivers and families in terms of time, effort and commitment. An analysis of the costs incurred by caregivers in providing care to PLHIV will assist health and social care decision makers in planning the most appropriate ways to meet future service needs of PLHIV and their caregivers.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This study estimated the cost incurred in providing care for PLHIV through a stratified sample of 169 primary and volunteer caregivers drawn from eight community home-based care groups in four health districts in Botswana.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The results show that the mean of the total monthly cost (explicit and indirect costs) incurred by the caregivers was $(90.45 ± 9.08) while the mean explicit cost of care giving was$(65.22 ± 7.82). This mean of the total monthly cost is about one and a half times the caregivers' mean monthly income of $66.00 (± 5.98) and more than six times the Government of Botswana's financial support to the caregivers. In addition, the cost incurred per visit by the caregivers was$15.26, while the total expenditure incurred per client or family in a month was $184.17.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The study, therefore, concludes that as the cost of providing care services to PLHIV is very high, the Government of Botswana should substantially increase the allowances paid to caregivers and the support it provides for the families of the clients. The overall costs for such a programme would be quite low compared with the huge sum of money budgeted each year for health care and for HIV and AIDS.</p

Relationship between socio-economic characteristics of older adults’ women and family planning use in Botswana

Older adults (50 years and over) are still sexually active and therefore vulnerable to unplanned pregnancy, infection of STIs and HIV, yet there are no programmes in place to cater for their family planning needs. The objective of the study is to show how some socio-economic characteristics of older adults influence their family planning (FP) use. The study used a stratified random sampling design where four health districts (two urban and two rural) were purposively selected and the sample size of 444 older adult women allocated to the districts using proportional allocation to size. Snowball technique was used in identifying respondents. The multinomial logistic regression analysis reveals that while age, marital status, educational qualification, employment status, menopausal status, district and desire for another child jointly significantly predict FP use, only menopausal status and desire for another child individually significantly (p&lt;0.01) predict FP use. Older adult women who desired another child were significantly (p&lt;0.01) 7.5 times more likely to use family planning (FP) methods than those who do not want another child. The postmenopausal older adult women were less likely to use FP methods than those in their premenopausal state (OR = 0.13). Women with no schooling were less likely to use FP methods than those with degree/professional qualifications. Single and married women were less likely to use FP methods than the divorced/widowed/separated. The study recommends the promotion of education and training on FP use among the older adult women that will take into consideration their menopausal status and desire for another child. The training should be home-based

Family planning desires of older adults (50 years and over) in Botswana

Background: This study analysed the views of a stratified sample of 444 older adult women from selected health districts in Botswana on their family planning (FP) use, knowledge, accessibility and availability.Methods: Four health districts (two rural and two urban) were purposively selected. The sample of 444 older adults was proportionally allocated to the districts. The snowball technique was used in identifying older adults from each district.Results: Contraceptive prevalence among the older adults is low (25. 2%); ever used rate was 23.6%, with unmet need as high as 75.2%. The traditional methods are mainly used. Knowledge, availability and accessibility of the natural methods are high. The likelihood ratio test shows that age, educational status, marital status and employment jointly significantly predicts (p 0.05) the use of FP.Conclusion: Family planning programme developers and policy-makers should develop educational interventions that will be age specific and relevant to older adults

Assessing the Challenges of Patent and Research Exemptions on Research Capacity and Utilization in Universities, Research Institutions and Industry in Botswana

A Final Technical Report Submitted to the International Development Research Centre (IDRC)The study analyzed the opinion of a stratified sample of 366 people from universities, research institutions and industry in Botswana on how patent regime and research exemptions impact on their research capacities and utilization of research outputs. The results of the study showed that although awareness of the use of patent rights to protect their invention was low (67%), the utilization of patent was extremely very low (8%). In addition, over 75% of the respondents were convinced of the need of granting universities and research institutions statutory research exemptions. In their view, granting such exemptions will enhance the researchers’ abilities to verify the truthfulness and accuracy of patent claims, and be able to compare old and new technologies. The study therefore recommends that (i) the IP Unit in the relevant ministry needs to adopt a more proactive role by sensitising people, especially those whose activities may result in inventions, about their IP rights, how these rights can be protected, the advantages of protecting their rights to inventions through patents and the patent procedure. Information literature contained in leaflets and other types of flyers should be widely used; (ii) The Tertiary Education Board, which is the supervisory body for education in the country needs to formulate an IP policy which should guide all the tertiary institutions in the country; (iii) The existing legal framework on patent rights and research exemptions in Botswana need to be made more effective; (iv) The Government, tertiary institutions and industry must be compelled to allocate funds for research and innovation; (v) Financial incentives, possibly through a 50/50 sharing of royalties from patents should be introduced; and (vi) Academic institutions should device well-publicised schemes to recognise and reward innovative initiatives by staff

Patent and research exemption: Challenges for research capacity and utilization in universities, research institutions and industry in Botswana

This study examined the opinions of a stratified sample of 366 researchers drawn from universities, research institutions and industries in Botswana on the challenges of patent and research exemptions on research capacity and utilization. The study found out the level of patent awareness and intellectual property awareness in the country generally is low (67%), while 69% of the researchers did not understand what the patent system is. Although 36% of the researchers were aware that they could conduct their researches or experiments on patented inventions without infringing on the rights of patentee to their inventions by invoking research exemptions, only 9 percent knew the procedure for invoking research exemption. Also, 77% were of the view that universities and research institutions should be granted research exemptions. The study further revealed that 8 percent of the researchers had applied for patent while 0.5% of the registered patentees in Botswana were locals. The most pressing challenge highlighted by researchers for inability to apply for patent was unawareness of conventions/laws governing patent practices. The study, therefore, recommends immediate knowledge-based interventions by Government of Botswana to create awareness among researchers and the entire population on Intellectual Property Rights within which the patent system falls. In addition, it is strongly recommended that legislation introducing an experimental use exemption should be introduced to encourage research and innovations.

Bayesian Vector Auto-Regression Method as an Alternative Technique for Forecasting South African Tax Revenue

Tax revenue forecasts are important for tax authorities as they contribute to the budget and strategic planning of any country. For this reason, various tax types need to be forecast for a specific fiscal year, using models that are statistically sound and have a smaller margin of error. This study models and forecasts South Africa’s major tax revenues, i.e. Corporate Income Tax (CIT), Personal Income Tax (PIT), Value-Added Tax (VAT) and Total Tax Revenue (TTR) using the Bayesian Vector Auto-regression (BVAR), Auto-regressive Moving Average (ARIMA), and State Space exponential smoothing (Error, Trend, Seasonal [ETS]) models with quarterly data from 1998 to 2012. The forecasts of the three models based on the Root mean square error (RMSE) were from the out-of-sample period 2012Q2 to 2015Q1. The results show the accuracy of the BVAR method for forecasting major tax revenues. The ETS appears to be a good method for TTR forecasting, as it outperformed the BVAR method. The paper recommends that the BVAR method may be added to existing techniques being used to forecast tax revenues in South Africa, as it gives a minimum forecast error. &nbsp

Socio-economic and demographic determinants of HIV status among HIV infected older adults (50-64 years) in Botswana: evidence from 2013 Botswana AIDS Impact Survey (BAIS IV).

A stratified two-stage probability sample design was used in selecting a total of 459 Enumeration areas and 8,275 households drawn systematically for the study with the aim to describe the characteristics of the HIV infected older adults in Botswana and determine how the HIV status of the older adults is influenced by their socioeconomic and demographic characteristics. Household and the individual questionnaires developed using the opinions of professionals, users of statistics, as well as experiences from the pre-test formed the instrument for the study. The results revealed that 23.2% of the older adults 50-64 years (25.5%, males and 21.5%, females) were HIV positive. An overwhelming majority of the males (88.7%) and females (83.3%) had either no education or primary education. About half of the males (50.9%) and 19% of the females were married while the majority of the females (43.9%) were never married. All the socioeconomic and demographic variables significantly (