Two Medical Lab Scientists at the National Health Laboratory, Gaborone. © WHO / Jayne Mache
Botswana
Botswana plays a strategic role as a regional cross-border hub, sharing borders with four countries and serving as a transit route for goods within the SADC region and beyond. These funds will enable Botswana to modernize its public health systems while contributing to a coordinated regional approach to health security.
ALLOCATION
US$ 1.83 M
PARTNERS
NATIONAL STEERING COMMITTEE
Co-chaired by Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Prof. Oathokwa Nkomazana and WHO Country Representative Dr Fabian Ndenzako First convened on 2 May 2025
Climate-related health challenges
Botswana largely depends on climate-sensitive sectors like health, agriculture, environment, water, and tourism. Botswana is increasingly vulnerable to the adverse effects of climate change, characterised by frequent and severe droughts affecting water availability, agriculture, and livestock and hence food security; floods that cause damage to public health infrastructure and displacement of communities; extreme temperatures and climatic changes that pose health risks and lead to an upsurge of vector-borne diseases like malaria, and pest outbreaks which threaten crops and food security.
Projected temperature increases and declining rainfall are expected to intensify droughts, soil erosion, and flash floods as was witnessed in February 2025. As climate shocks worsen, they deepen community vulnerability and strain health services.
Additional non-climatic factors, such as inadequate infrastructure, maldistribution of the health workforce, supply chain challenges, and weak adaptive capacity, further reduce health systems resilience.
Early warning and disease surveillance systems
Botswana is undertaking a multi-sectoral surveillance that is interoperable and rooted in the One Health approach. The country will:
- Map its national surveillance landscape and establish an integrated One Health surveillance system.
- Integrate surveillance platforms, including Evidence-Based Surveillance (EBS), Community-Based Surveillance (CBS), Indicator-Based Surveillance (IBS), and Epidemic Intelligence from Open Sources (EIOS).
- Develop standardized information products and SOPs for climate-health data integration and enhance community engagement around early warning.
Botswana will also develop interoperable information systems, design real-time dashboards for monitoring key health indicators, and procure ICT tools to support data collection and sharing. Institutional arrangements will be established to ensure long-term sustainability and collaboration across sectors.
Laboratory systems
To expand diagnostic capacity and support timely outbreak detection:
- Mobile laboratories will be deployed to ports of entry and border regions, focusing on high-risk areas.
- The initiative will fund biosafety cabinets, molecular diagnostic tools, and cold-chain equipment, along with harmonized Standard Operating Procedures for sample handling and testing.
- Botswana will also assess and integrate environmental laboratories into regional surveillance networks and implement a centralized digital reporting system to link laboratory data with national surveillance platforms.
- Capacity-building materials will be developed to ensure biosafety, biosecurity, and data integrity.
Strengthening human resources and public health workforce
Botswana will invest in building workforce capacity to be skilled on the effects of climate change on public health.
- Joint Field Epidemiology Training Programmes (FETP) for workers stationed at points of entry.
- Adaptation of FETP e-learning modules and rollout of standardized EPR protocols.
- Revision and rollout of AVoHC SURGE manuals to include responses to climate-related, zoonotic, and food-borne disease outbreaks.
Other goals
- Conduct simulation exercises, undertake multi-sectoral training, and develop a national One Health Workforce Strategy.
- Maintain a national database of surge personnel and strengthen capacity for EPR implementation including the development of a surge deployment plan.
- Help lead the establishment of a Health Emergency Leaders Network, aligned with the Global Health Emergency Corps to support high-level leadership, promote equity and gender balance, and facilitate regional coordination and learning.