Botswana:
Military & Transnational Issues


Military branches	Botswana Defense Force (includes an air wing) (2006)
Military service age and obligation	18 is the apparent age of voluntary military service; the official qualifications for determining minimum age are unknown (2001)
Manpower available for military service	males age 18-49: 350,649 females age 18-49: 361,642 (2005 est.)
Manpower fit for military service	males age 18-49: 136,322 females age 18-49: 136,315 (2005 est.)
Manpower reaching military age annually	males age 18-49: 21,103 females age 18-49: 21,379 (2005 est.)
Military expenditures - percent of GDP	3.3% (2006)

Disputes - international	the alignment of the boundary with Namibia in the Kwando/Linyanti/Chobe River, including the Situngu marshlands, was resolved amicably in 2003; concerns from international experts and local populations over the ecology of the Okavango Delta in Botswana and human displacement scuttled Namibian plans to construct a hydroelectric dam at Popavalle (Popa Falls) along the Angola-Namibia border; Botswana has built electric fences to stem the thousands of Zimbabweans who flee to find work and escape political persecution; Namibia has long supported, and in 2004 Zimbabwe dropped objections to, plans between Botswana and Zambia to build a bridge over the Zambezi River, thereby de facto recognizing the short, but not clearly delimited, Botswana-Zambia boundary