Achieving lasting Indigenous rights reform in Botswana
Botswana's November 2024 elections opened a historic window for the recognition and restoration of San rights. Our four-year programme is designed to translate those political commitments into durable, community-owned outcomes.
A historic political opening
For decades, Botswana's San population has faced systematic displacement, dispossession and marginalisation. In 2024, a new administration under President Duma Boko committed to recognising the San as a marginalized Indigenous minority and to taking concrete steps to remedy historical injustices — including the restitution of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, ratification of ILO Convention 169, and comprehensive legal and policy reform.
Anthropos Africa operates under a formal MOU with the Government of Botswana and the Khwedom Council. Our role is enabling rather than implementing: providing the technical capacity, facilitation, and partnership management that allow government and San communities to lead the reform together.
The four-year reform programme is one part of a larger institutional commitment. Alongside this programme, Anthropos pursues two long-term core programmes — Lands and Livelihoods, and CBO Support — that define the organisation's enduring work in the region and will continue well beyond the 2029 reform window. See our core programmes →
Four linked workstreams, one integrated strategy
Lasting reform requires simultaneously community-owned, evidence-grounded, legally durable and financially sustainable foundations. Each workstream addresses one of these conditions — and none can deliver alone.
San Community Organisations & CBO Support
Strengthen Khwedom Council and the wider ecosystem of San-owned organisations so that communities can lead reform, hold Government accountable, and take ownership of outcomes. Grounded in Free, Prior and Informed Consent under ILO 169.
Data & Evidence
Build the evidence base on which every other workstream depends: a credible San census, a national land tenure audit, costed policy briefs, and a monitoring framework that holds the reform accountable.
CKGR Restoration
A four-phase roadmap to restore San rights to 52,000 km² of ancestral land in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, within a community-led conservation co-management framework. The largest structured land return to an Indigenous people ever attempted in a protected area in Africa.
Policy, Legal & Institutional Reform
The statutory and policy architecture that makes every other reform durable: ILO 169 ratification, replacement of the 1978 Remote Area Development Programme, and a new National Indigenous Peoples Policy with a costed implementation plan.
A four-year arc
The programme is sequential and cumulative. Data and community organisation come first — without them, neither policy reform nor CKGR restoration can proceed on solid ground. The legal architecture they unlock, in turn, draws in the large-scale implementation finance that makes reform permanent.
Baseline, mandate, consultation
Data audit and indicative census; Khwedom Council restructured; CKGR community body established; ILO 169 ratification initiated; core donors secured.
Heads of Agreement
CKGR Heads of Agreement negotiated; National Indigenous Peoples Policy drafted; targeted data collection; bilateral proposals submitted.
Instruments & design
Enabling legislation enacted; CKGR management plan drafted; full evidence base in place; major funding agreements finalised.
Operational
Co-management live; services permanent; San leadership central to oversight; conservation finance flowing; CKGR on self-financing trajectory.
Beyond the four-year programme
The Botswana Indigenous Rights Programme is the immediate priority and the gateway to a larger body of work. Anthropos has two core programmes that will continue well beyond the 2029 reform window — defining the organisation's enduring institutional commitment to San rights and development.
Lands and Livelihoods
Securing land as the long-term asset base for San communities — and converting that asset base into community wealth through equity-backed economic models.
CBO Support
Building a strong, well-governed network of San community-based organisations with the institutional capacity to hold rights, manage assets, and hold governments to account.