This chapter looks at change in Botswana's settlement patterns since independence in 1966 when approximately 95 per cent of the population was in rural areas or large villages. Since independence, one of the major changes in settlement patterns has been the growth of modem towns following the implementation of certain development programmes.

The redistribution of population in space has received considerable attention (Clarke and Kosinski 1982). People have always moved from one area to another in search of opportunities and have brought with them skills and other forms of capital. Opoko (1990) has shown how the Western Region of Ghana has experienced an increase in cocoa production and a rise in literacy as a result of in-migration. Wood (1982) has studied the spontaneous migrations by peasants from congested rural areas of Ethiopia to the unused (or underutilised) lands, transforming agricultural production in their new home areas.

The awareness of population issues by governments has increased significantly since the 1974 World Population Conference. At an intergovernmental meeting organised by the Economic Commission for Africa (EC A) in 1977, African governments made a number of suggestions regarding the policy measures to be adopted with regard to population distribution and internal migration. In the same year, many African governments considered the spatial distribution patterns to be unacceptable and with regards to policies of internal migration, most African governments ‘desired to either decelerate or even reverse the existing trends’ (Clarke and Kosinski 1982: 13).

African countries have in varying degrees consequently experimented with a series of programmes that were designed explicitly or implicity to influence existing population distributions, especially in rural areas (Adepoju 1982). The main motivation behind these programmes has been the desire to stem the high rates of rural-urban migration by stimulating development in the rural areas. One of the major impediments to rural development has often been perceived to be the distribution of population in small and scattered settlements.

Most policies have not been explicit as regards population redistribution or settlement changes, although some have formulated rural development strategies, entailing resettlement schemes and the creation of new growth centres to stimulate development in low density regions and the provision of social amenities in more concentrated areas.