The refugee factor in Botswana

Refugees to Botswana have included mass influxes of rural peoples from South West Africa/Namibia, Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and South Africa as well as smaller numbers of political activists from each of these territories and Lesotho. The government of Botswana, with the benefit of substantial external assistance, has evolved a legal, organizational and policy response to enable it to cope with the economic, social, political and security strains which result from refugee movements. The policies applied by the government have included moving refugees on to third countries, resettlement, voluntary repatriation, encampment, and measures designed to discourage all save genuine refugees. Although there have been notable successes with each of these techniques, neither singly nor collectively have they proved a panacea for the problems resulting from refugee movements