Botswana national licences to three private radio stations. SCORING: Individual scores: 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 1, 2 Average score: 1.7 2.5 (2005 = 1.8) Community broadcasting enjoys special promotion given its potential to broaden access by poor and rural communities. ANALYSIS: The introduction of community radio in Botswana still seems to be a distant prospect. While there was no resistance to community radios during the public consultation process for the development of the broadcasting policy mentioned under 2.4, the chapter on community broadcasting in the draft policy was hotly debated in Parliament, with widely divergent views expressed across party affiliations. Some MPs thought that this was the right way to go while others – on all sides of the political divide - felt that Botswana was not yet ready for what they saw as a potentially divisive service. What has emerged from the debate of the policy so far is that there are many misconceptions about community radio and television broadcasting and that the issue has been highly politicised. This has been made worse by the fact that one of the communities wishing to set up a community radio station is the Basarwa from around the Gantsi area in the North of the country. There seems to be a fear in government circles that an international NGO - Survival International – which has been campaigning against the removal of San people from their original home in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, could use community radios to promote its cause. Some MPs felt that community stations would bring about tribal tensions and even quoted the example of the genocide in Rwanda to make African Media Barometer - Botswana 2007 19