Land Information Systems Development and the National Spatial Data Infrastructure in Botswana

Botswana recently embarked on an effort to improve its National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI). This paper takes an example of the country’s effort to improve information for land administration and the problems this effort has had because of a poor spatial data infrastructure. It then discussed how the current effort is likely to have impact on the organization of information for land management in Botswana. For long, various Departments of Government have been acquiring their own land information for their operations although they realized that they were duplicating this acquisition and that a standardized coordinated land information system would improve data exchange among them. The NSDI provides a basis for coordination.