Women Rights Activists Never Stopped Talking: From Formal Women’s Movements to Informal and Fluid Networks Through the Empowerment Discourse in Post-Donor Aid Botswana

Abstract

This paper explores the narratives of women in Botswana seeking ‘empowerment’ outside the realm
of formal development actors and political structures. From the 1970s to the early 1990s, the postindependence
development era saw the influx of much needed financial aid from international donors
which benefited women’s non-governmental organisations and the Women’s Affairs Unit in the Ministry
of Home Affairs in Botswana. However, the elevation of Botswana to upper-middle income status in 1992
heralded substantial reductions in donor aid. The result of the donor flight from Botswana has been the
reversal of many gains made in women’s activism. While the decline in donor funding is regrettable, it
would be misleading to claim that women in Botswana have stopped efforts to confront patriarchy. What
has emerged is a bourgeoning discourse around ‘empowerment of young women’ by various local actors,
with and without support of donor funding. This includes utilisation of the cyberspace. Problematic as
the term ‘empowerment’ may be, it has found a lot of resonance with many women, young and old, so
that there has emerged a plethora of ‘generational dialogues’, youth empowerment seminars, high teas,
and foundations registered, around the needs of ‘the girl child’. While the developments may not take a
directly ‘political’ posture, our proposal is that they are part of the continuation of conversations around
Botswana women’s politics of culture, representation, autonomy and agency. They also are indicative of
an interesting intersection between a neo-liberal rights-based agenda of collective movements and a more
agentic and personalised efforts, yet within a collective outlook.