Botswana\u2019s former head of state Festus Mogae has died at the age of 86, President Duma Boko has announced.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday Botswana mourns a distinguished statesman and patriot whose life was devoted to the service of his country,\u201d Boko announced, adding that Mogae died early on Friday.<\/p>\n
The former president, who led Botswana from 1998 to 2008, had been in ill health for some time.<\/p>\n
In a statement last month, the government said he was receiving medical care at a hospital in the capital, Gaborone, without disclosing the nature of his illness.<\/p>\n
Mogae, the country\u2019s thrid president, is widely credited with strengthening Botswana\u2019s economic management and governance systems during a period of rapid growth driven by diamond revenues.<\/p>\n
Before assuming the presidency, he held senior positions in government including finance minister and later vice-president.<\/p>\n
He is also widely credited with steering Botswana\u2019s response to the HIV\/Aids epidemic. At the time, his country had one of the world\u2019s worst infection rates, but an ambitious antiretroviral treatment programme significantly reduced infection and mortality rates.<\/p>\n
Even after leaving office, he remained an advocate for HIV\/Aids treatment in the region, pushing for free antiretroviral therapy and measures to prevent mother-to-child transmission.<\/p>\n
He was subsequently involved in various international advisory and peace mediation roles across the continent.<\/p>\n
In 2008, Mogae won the the Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership \u2013 one of the most prestigious honours for African governance \u2013 recognising his democratic leadership and peaceful transfer of power.<\/p>\n
Mogae was succeeded as president by Ian Khama.<\/p>\n
Botswana is one of Africa\u2019s most politically stable countries \u2013 it has never had a coup and has had regular multi-party elections since independence in 1966.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Botswana\u2019s former head of state Festus Mogae has died at the age of 86, President Duma Boko has announced. \u201cToday Botswana mourns a distinguished statesman and patriot whose life was devoted to the service of his country,\u201d Boko announced, adding that Mogae died early on Friday. The former president, who led Botswana from 1998 to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-140270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}