The Advent of Upgrading Schemes in Urbanizing Traditional Settlements of Botswana: Case of Kanye Village

Botswana is a country with one of the fastest urbanizing population in sub-Saharan Africa with over 60% of its population living in cities, towns and urban villages. Botswana consists of several urbanizing traditional settlements within its settlement system, which have over the years transformed in terms of size, morphology and economic structures. The policy intervention processes and the resultant physical configuration within these urbanizing traditional settlements is testimony to the political economy of Botswana’s history. Contemporary planning as a key policy intervention process, in these urbanizing traditional settlements, however, provides the space for contest between formal planning based on ‘northern-derived theory’ and indigenous planning practices. Thus, the advent of Upgrading Schemes, as part of this contemporary planning, brings to the fore this contestation. This paper traces the case of an Upgrading Scheme for Kanye village, articulating its relevance, shortcomings and limitations to effect change, and so proposes a policy framework within which the upgrading schemes could be formulated and undertaken in Botswana.