The gloom surrounding Botswana’s Diamond Jubilee
Lewanika Timothy | Monday August 24, 2026 15:44
Next month, Botswana will reach a milestone few a nations have achieved, an independence Diamond Jubilee reached with no stone thrown or blood dropped in civil wars or fight over national resources. The challenges surmounted by those who have treaded this ground before us, are worthy of a feast stretching for days.
There is a particular danger in judging Botswana exclusively through the lens of today's economy because, historically, the very existence of a modern Botswana economy is itself an extraordinary development.
At independence in 1966, many observers and scholar of the time thought little would come out Botswana. A nation seeking independence from being a British protectorate with little to no resources but a trust in its people’s wits and work ethic. The second president, Sir Ketumile Masire, would later comment that they were either “too brave or too foolish”.
The Bechuanaland Protectorate was overwhelmingly rural, with subsistence agriculture and cattle at the centre of economic life. Urbanisation was negligible and productive employment inside the territory was scarce. Real per capita income at independence was around US$300 leaving Botswana ranking among the world's poorest countries.
Employment opportunities were slim and the employable population was mostly male with many males working in the mines of South Africa. Long before diamonds were discovered at Orapa and before copper-nickel transformed Selebi-Phikwe, the economic relationship between Botswana and its southern neighbour had been defined by the movement of Batswana workers across the border.
In one of his historical analysis, scholar at the University of Botswana, Wazha Morapedi, published that migrant labour, while carrying significant social costs, was also an important mechanism through which poor and uneducated Batswana accumulated capital, acquired skills and invested in agriculture and commercial enterprises. For some households, wages earned in South Africa provided the foundation for businesses and assets that survived long after the workers returned home.
The colonial administration had invested little in the productive development of the territory, and persistent droughts, weak agricultural markets and the dependence of rural households on cattle made economic life quite precarious.
The Botswana of 1966 therefore entered independence with a peculiar economic inheritance: a population largely living in rural areas, a cattle-based economy, very little industrial capacity, limited infrastructure and a labour force whose economic prospects were partly tied to a foreign economy.
But the country’s fortune would later change, with the discovery of diamonds in Orapa from the 70s.
The discovery and exploitation of diamonds at Orapa, together with copper-nickel at Selebi-Phikwe, changed the possibilities available to the new government. From the mid-1970s, the country began experiencing tangible development on a scale that would have been difficult to imagine a decade earlier.
The government invested mineral revenues in infrastructure, education and health. Economic institutions were established and strengthened. The Bank of Botswana was created in 1975 and the pula introduced in 1976, giving the young republic its own monetary institutions and currency. The country retained a functioning constitutional order.
But of course, the tide has turned, the centre fails to hold and the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Now the country finds itself at a crossroad; what got it here will not take it to the next level of growth. Unemployment has soared well above 28% with the frustration of young people who have qualifications but cannot find jobs, growing daily. The economy's dependence on diamonds is a vulnerability that has been evident for years and has become considerably more urgent as the global natural diamond market has weakened. The country's economy contracted sharply in 2024, underscoring just how exposed national fortunes remain to developments in a single commodity sector.
But there is a temptation to look at these problems and conclude that the Botswana model has somehow failed. There is no doubt that our country’s economic model is under pressure. The country must create productive industries beyond diamonds, deepen private-sector participation, improve the efficiency of the state and develop an economy capable of absorbing a much larger and better educated labour force.
But it does not take away from the fact that our country overcame the tough tempest of 1966, the drought of the 80s and that is perhaps the most important reason Botswana should resist the urge to allow today's difficulties to overwhelm the celebration of its journey.
Celebrating the country’s history does not erode its predicaments nor does it mean we claim the country is some sort of candy. Scholars of nationalism will note that a country celebrates its achievements most meaningfully when it understands what those achievements cost and what remains unfinished.
Botswana's first 60 years were never supposed to be the end of the national project. They were the construction of its foundations. The task now is to build upon them.
The diamond era made possible the Botswana we know. It financed roads that connected communities, schools that educated generations, hospitals that extended the reach of the state and institutions that gave the country a reputation far greater than its population or economic size would suggest.
That means the real question at 60 is not whether Botswana has problems. Of course it does. The real question is whether a country that once had almost nothing can once again summon the confidence, discipline and imagination that enabled it to build so much.
Recently there was an uproar over governments P23 million budget for the country’s 60th Independence celebrations, a decision that is already igniting public debate as the economy slows and public hospitals continue to grapple with shortages of essential medicines.
Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture, Jacob Kelebeng, announced the allocation recently, saying government had set aside P23 million to commemorate the country’s Diamond Jubilee of independence.
Many antagonists bellowed that there is no medicine in hospitals. Fair point but does that erase the need for celebrating how far we have come as a country?
Probably proponents of this school of thought are clueless on what nationalism, patriotism are all about.