Botswana at 60 challenges the story of postcolonial African failure

This week, Botswana is marking 60 years of independence from Britain with Diamond Jubilee celebrations across the country. The anniversary underscores the scale of the country’s transformation. In 1966, the former Bechuanaland Protectorate was among the world’s poorest countries, with barely 12 kilometres of paved road, just 22 university graduates and about 100 secondary-school graduates.

Six decades later, Botswana is an upper-middle-income country with one of postcolonial Africa’s most striking development records. Between 1965 and 1980, Botswana’s economy grew by an average of 13.9 percent a year. By 2025, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita had reached about $7,800, higher than South Africa’s roughly $6,600, a striking reversal given South Africa’s position as one of the continent’s largest and most diversified economies. But the significance of Botswana’s growth lies not only in its scale, but in what the country did with it.

In 1994, it became the first country ever to graduate from the United Nations’ least-developed country category. The World Bank now classifies Botswana as an upper-middle-income economy, and the change is visible across the country. By 2024, its road network stretched almost 35,000 kilometres, 80.2 percent of the population had access to electricity and, according to the 2022 census, 66.5 percent of Batswana lived in urban areas, compared with just 9.1 percent in 1971.

Public investment also dramatically expanded access to education. By 2022, Botswana had 192,151 secondary-school pupils, while by 2024 some 60,287 students were enrolled in tertiary institutions. A country that entered independence with only 22 university graduates now educates tens of thousands of students at tertiary level.

The gains extended beyond education. Botswana’s national poverty rate fell from 30.6 percent in 2002/03 to an estimated 14.5 percent by 2022. Public healthcare expanded alongside this transformation. Today, 85 percent of Batswana live within five kilometres of a health facility and almost all births occur in health facilities.

Botswana’s response to HIV is more remarkable still. In 2002, Botswana launched Africa’s first national free comprehensive HIV treatment programme. Twenty-three years later, the World Health Organization recognised it as the first high-HIV-burden country in the world to achieve Gold Tier status on the path towards eliminating mother-to-child transmission. Ninety-eight percent of pregnant women living with HIV receive treatment, transmission to children has fallen to about 1.2 percent and life expectancy now stands at 69 years.

Political stability has also endured through democratic change. In 2024, after 58 years of Botswana Democratic Party rule, voters elected the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) and the outgoing government relinquished office peacefully.

Botswana’s achievements are increasingly visible beyond politics and economics, too. Letsile Tebogo won the country’s first Olympic gold medal in Paris in 2024. A year later, Collen Kebinatshipi became world 400m champion. In May 2026, Botswana hosted the World Athletics Relays in Gaborone, a first for Africa, and ended the competition by winning the men’s 4x400m title before its home crowd.

Behind much of Botswana’s economic and social progress lies the way it has managed its diamond wealth.

Today, Botswana owns 50 percent of Debswana, the diamond-mining joint venture it shares with De Beers, while the Pula Fund, its sovereign wealth fund, preserves part of the country’s wealth for future generations and helps cushion the economy against mineral-related macroeconomic shocks. Foreign reserves equivalent to 7.5 months of imports provide an additional layer of financial protection. The state continues to use mineral revenues to finance public services, infrastructure and economic development rather than treating diamonds simply as an export windfall.

Yet for all that Botswana has achieved, it remains vulnerable to the commodity that financed much of this progress. Diamonds have accounted for almost 90 percent of goods exports over the past decade and still generate about a third of national revenue and three-quarters of foreign-exchange earnings.

Natural diamonds have faced softer luxury demand and growing competition from laboratory-grown stones that sell for a fraction of the price. As global demand weakened, Botswana felt the consequences immediately. The economy contracted by 2.8 percent in 2024 and another 0.7 percent in 2025.

The downturn deepens Botswana’s already serious employment challenge. Its latest household survey puts unemployment at 21 percent, rising to 28.9 percent among people aged 15 to 35.

Botswana largely avoided the resource curse, yet it never overcame its heavy reliance on diamonds. The challenge at 60 is no longer how to turn diamonds into development, but how to create prosperity that can survive without them.

That requires looking beyond diamonds. Botswana’s 2025 agreement with De Beers gives the state-owned Okavango Diamond Company 30 percent of Debswana production, rising to 40 percent after 2030 and potentially 50 percent thereafter. It also provides for jewellery manufacturing, diamond grading and vocational training. Botswana should capture as much value as possible from every stone it mines. But processing, polishing and marketing diamonds will not end its dependence on diamonds.

Botswana now needs a broader, more resilient economy, and some of the foundations are already in place. In 2024, 68.9 percent of households had internet access, up from 40.6 percent a decade earlier. That connectivity has yet to translate into many jobs: information and communications technology accounted for only 2 percent of employment in 2025. Botswana must invest in the skills needed to turn connectivity into software, fintech, digital services and technology businesses that employ Batswana and sell beyond its borders.

Tourism is another existing strength, already providing about 50,500 jobs, or 6.7 percent of total employment, and accounting for more than 60 percent of services exports. A conservation model that places roughly 40 percent of the country’s land under protected status gives Botswana an asset it can build on.

Economic diversification will require abundant power. A 500MW solar plant with 500MWh of battery storage is being built at Maun. Cheap, reliable renewable energy could support manufacturing, data centres and new industries rather than simply light homes.

Botswana must also help more businesses compete regionally and globally. More than 95 percent of private-sector sales remain domestic and only 9 percent of surveyed firms export at all. More Batswana need access to finance and training so they can start, own and expand businesses and benefit from the next economy.

The institutions that turned diamonds into roads, schools and healthcare must now use six decades of accumulated skills, infrastructure and capital to create a new economy built on technology, energy, manufacturing and exports.

Botswana matters beyond its borders because its record contrasts sharply with other resource-rich African states. According to the World Bank’s latest available data, copper dominates Zambia’s exports, while 71.7 percent of Zambians live on less than $3 a day. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is rich in copper and cobalt, but 85.3 percent of its people remain below the same threshold. In oil-rich Nigeria, Africa’s largest petroleum producer, 41.8 percent of the population lives on less than $3 a day.

Botswana demonstrates that a decisive question is not whether a country has mineral wealth, but who controls it, how its revenues are protected and whether the state converts them into better housing, stronger infrastructure, reliable public services and greater economic security.

That lesson is especially important as African countries seek greater control over critical minerals. Mineral wealth does not inevitably produce corruption, conflict or poverty. Success must ultimately be measured by whether those resources foster more productive economies, widen opportunity and materially improve people’s lives.

That is the larger meaning of Botswana at 60: in the right hands, postcolonial power can serve the many rather than the few.

There is an old Setswana saying: “Moenyane o pele lebone la waabo” — the one who goes ahead becomes a light for those who come after.

May Botswana light the way for Africa.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.