The government of Botswana only grants 200 citizenship applications per year, according to the Minister of Immigration and Citizenship, Annah Mokgethi.

This is despite a population of more than 2.5 million citizens, and thousands of square kilometres of land, the majority being unoccupied.

The Minister announced the figure in answer to a question in parliament, but added that this doesn’t include spouses of citizens.

“A total number of 1216 people were granted citizenship since January 2016 to date, and 569 of them were foreign spouses,” stated Mokgethi.

She went on to add that Botswana citizenship eligibility includes the resident having spent 10 years in the country for naturalisation and five years for foreign spouses, adequate knowledge of any local language and having made a significant contribution to Botswana’s economy.

“Other additional considerations are that the applicant must be in possession of necessary scarce skill to contribute to the country in realising its development agenda, which includes the vision of becoming a knowledge-based economy,” the Minister added.

There have been suggestions the government should increase the amount of citizenships granted to 400 per year, due to there being a large number of skilled expats living in the country who have not been awarded citizenship.

According to the National Development Plan 11 Mid-Term Review Report released in 2020, the Botswana economy is struggling to create 1,000 jobs a year.

Furthermore, the Minister said as many as 80 Batswana have renounced Botswana citizenship since 2019, and the ministry is presently revising the Citizenship Act to look into the issue of dual citizenship among other matters.