Governance: Africa’s Achilles' heel

The Monitor Editor | Wednesday October 29, 2025 06:24

Why this particularly distasteful and embarrassing phenomenon appears to especially plague Africa is the subject of many theses, tomes of literature and other studies. Simply, however, it is the normalisation of aberrant politics on our continent, a blatant refusal by generations of politicians to allow the free expression of their citizens’ aspirations in governance and development.

To be clear, this is not about race: even in the world’s richest democracy, the United States, the leader there has tested the waters about an unconstitutional third term.

However, it is on our continent, so desperately in need of growth, so far behind the world in nearly all indicators of human development, and so scarred by the ravages of colonialism, that good governance is desperately needed, simply as the basic necessity, the bare minimum required, for that very growth.

Many political leaders in Africa have struggled to shrug off the culture of chieftainships and kings with its associated paternalism, in many cases enabled by former colonisers and mercenaries who have vested economic interests in the lack of democracy and good governance.

All the supranational organisations on the continent, from the African Union to SADC and others, operate more as back-patting fraternities, meeting occasionally to make lofty statements and attack perceived anti-pan-African rivals. These organisations have not and do not frequently act to ensure greater democracy amongst members, greater freedoms for citizens, or more immediate censure for leaders who impose their iron will through human rights abuses.

In this, however, Botswana stands as a beacon, a steady and shining example of African excellence in governance, an open textbook of mistakes made, lessons learned, and corrections done in real time over the decades. Where Africa’s hope for growth as the global centre of critical minerals stands to be bastardised by poor governance, Botswana is a textbook study of prudent, responsible minerals management for the benefit of citizens.

Our think tanks, such as the Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis (BIDPA) and those housed within the various universities, would do well to see how to bottle this excellence and make it into a monetizable product for Africa. In the same way that PEMANDU took its project excellence from Malaysia and bottled it, the same could be done with Botswana’s record of governance and mineral policy excellence.