BDC, Debswana partner for diversification drive
Mbongeni Mguni | Monday April 27, 2026 06:00
Debswana has reportedly received preliminary board-level approval for its diversification strategy, which seeks to leverage the group’s expertise, non-diamond assets and interests into broader ventures beyond diamond mining.
Previously released hints by the diamond group indicated that Debswana was looking at opportunities such as solar power generation, biofuel generation, data monetisation, local manufacturing, small-scale mining, repair and maintenance, sustainable eco-tourism and others.
Speaking at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the BDC on Monday, Debswana chief financial officer, Ian Modubule, said the new partnership was critical given the challenges being experienced in the diamond market.
“We do understand that the mining industry, in particular the diamond mining industry, is very, very challenged, and that being the case, we saw it fit to look at our strategy and come up with a strategy that will drive the business forward,” he said.
“We've learned that we cannot continue relying on diamonds alone, because that basically means that if diamonds are in trouble, we are in trouble, and the country as a whole is in trouble. “So we came up with a strategy that is really trying to address that gap of relying on one commodity and to say that we need to change.”
The new partnership comes a few weeks after Debswana officially unveiled its Business Development office, which will be key to the diversification strategy.
“The business development function is really to try and ensure that the steps that we are taking are measured and that we are very careful. “We are not going to reinvent the wheel while we have partners like BDC who can actually hold our hand and guide us as we move through these challenges,” Modubule said.
For his part, BDC managing director, Oteng Keabetswe, said the organisation would bring its decades of experience and intellectual property in economic diversification to assist Debswana and the broader economy.
BDC, founded in 1970, was instrumental in establishing entities that are now household names, such as the national airline and others in insurance, healthcare and manufacturing.
“We find ourselves in a situation where the country is facing economic volatility, which is on the backdrop of declining mining revenues,” he said. “The national call to our economic anchor, being Debswana, is to really diversify. “Debswana sits with a wide range of holdings in different assets which could be optimised to unlock value in terms of both economic flow of returns as well as returns to a nation in terms of socio-economic impacts that will come in new jobs created, jobs that are sustainable and decent.”
Debswana MD, Andrew Motsomi, said the new partnership was designed to provide a platform to support the country’s broader transformation and diversification goals, as espoused by the Botswana Economic Transformation Programme (BETP).
“Together with BDC, we will advance national economic diversification through value-adding projects, promote long-term institutional legacy and economic sovereignty and also drive citizen empowerment through employment creation,” he said. “We share a common vision, one rooted in national prosperity, economic resilience and institutional legacy. “This partnership symbolises more than commercial opportunity. ‘It represents a commitment to national transformation consistent with the BETP.”