25 Thebe World Food Day

World Food Day, observed on October 16 to mark the 1945 founding of the FAO, prompted numerous nations to issue commemorative and circulation currency during the 1980s and early 1990s under FAO encouragement. Botswana's participation with a circulating base-metal issue rather than a precious-metal commemorative reflects the FAO's explicit preference for coins that would actually reach ordinary hands. The shift to nickel clad steel from the earlier composition — reflected in the KM#6a designation — was a cost-driven production change typical of that transitional period in Botswana's coinage program.