27/05/2026
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by; Mr. Sekwaya Pikinini
(A 2024 Okavango West Constituency BDP MP Candidate and a member of the Sustainable Environment Portfolio Committee of the BDP).
Botswana has done the hard part of laying foundations. We have invested in human capital and now have a workforce ready for the market. The policy architecture exists. The Economic Diversification Drive is in place, citizen economic empowerment schemes provide a platform for local participation and the Botswana Economic Transformation Plan sets out a clear direction for shifting the economy toward higher productivity and private sector-led growth. The potential to expand existing sectors from agro-processing and beef to minerals beneficiation, tourism and digital services is real and immediate.
The question is no longer whether we can diversify. The question is whether we will build the productive economy and the implementing capacity to make diversification stick. A nation led by personalities perishes when they exit; a nation led by institutions endures through centuries. So our leaders must prioritize institutional architecture over personal legacy. Codify rules, train cadres, protect independence and design systems that persist beyond political cycles. Nations rise when institutions outlast individuals. Our next phase of growth depends on that principle. We must shift from projects tied to personalities to industries anchored in institutions, rules and repeatable processes.
Nations are not built through grievance or nostalgia as we are witnessing. They are built by people who take responsibility for the present and act on it regardless of who held power yesterday. Botswana cannot afford to define itself by its wounds. If we spend our time litigating the past and blaming predecessors, we lose the capacity to construct the future. The work ahead requires a forward orientation where we take the human capital we have developed, the policies we have crafted and the empowerment schemes we have launched and convert them into factories, farms, firms and exports that employ citizens and earn foreign exchange. This means moving from dialogue to delivery, from entitlement to enterprise, from consumption to production. The energy spent on blame is energy not spent on building. The future will not wait for us to finish arguing about yesterday.
Production is where real wealth is created. Wealth is not made by moving money around; it is made when raw materials, labor, knowledge and capital combine to produce goods and services people value. At present, too much of our economy is built on distribution and services around imported goods. That creates activity, but not resilience. For Botswana, moving forward means going beyond exporting raw diamonds, beef, and agricultural produce in unprocessed form. It means agro-processing, leather and textile manufacturing, minerals beneficiation, component manufacturing, and creative and digital industries that export Botswanaโs ideas and culture. Production is where jobs multiply, skills deepen and value stays in the country.
Industry development gives that production scale, quality and resilience. Diamonds taught us how to manage a resource. They have not yet taught us how to build an industrial base. This requires more than incentives. It requires functioning infrastructure, predictable regulation, reliable power and water, logistics that work and a skills pipeline aligned to what industry actually needs. It requires development finance that understands production cycles, not just retail lending. And it requires a state that acts as an enabler and demanding partner, not a passive spectator or obstructive gatekeeper. We must identify priority value chains and treat them with the focus we once gave to diamonds. Coordinated industrial policy, targeted investment in productive infrastructure and strict quality standards will make โMade in Botswanaโ a mark of credibility in regional and global markets.
State Owned Enterprises and Special Economic Zones must play a catalytic role in this shift. SOEs should be restructured to operate with commercial discipline, clear mandates and accountability for results, rather than as instruments of patronage. Where they have natural advantages in infrastructure, utilities, or strategic sectors, they should crowd in private capital and expertise, not crowd it out. Special Economic Zones offer us the opportunity to create concentrated ecosystems with streamlined regulation, reliable services and targeted incentives that attract investors and allow firms to test, scale and export. For both SOEs and SEZs to work, they must be governed by performance contracts, transparent procurement and leadership appointed on merit. Without that, they become liabilities rather than engines of growth.
Exports impose the discipline that makes us globally competitive. A domestic market of around 3 million cannot sustain an industrial economy alone. Exporting forces producers to meet international standards, manage costs and innovate continuously. It brings foreign exchange that reduces dependence on mineral rents and exposes inefficiencies in ports, customs, and trade facilitation that we can no longer ignore. Botswanaโs location and our access through AfCFTA, SADC and SACU give us an opening. But opening doors is not enough. We need export-ready firms, market intelligence, branding and logistics solutions that make it easier for a producer in Shakawe or Tsabong to sell in Lusaka, Nairobi, or Dubai than it is today.
If we want a nation that delivers on jobs, health, education, and dignity, we must build the hands, systems and minds that make it happen. That means treating capacity to implement as a national priority, not a back-office function. The Botswana Economic Transformation Plan will remain a document unless the public sector is reformed to execute it. We need a public service that enables production rather than obstructs it, with clear performance-oriented mandates, streamlined processes and digital delivery that reduces red tape and discretion. It requires merit-based appointments, protected technical cadres and transparent procurement so that integrity becomes the norm. SOEs, SEZs, ministries and agencies must be measured on how they enable production and exports, not just on compliance and activity. Civil servants must see themselves as partners to productive enterprise.
Beyond the state, capacity building means aligning skills to industry through TVET and tertiary institutions that co-design curricula with firms and are accountable for graduate placement in productive sectors. It means de-risking investment through patient capital, partial guarantees and technical assistance for firms moving from idea to factory floor to export market. It means protecting quality and standards so that integrity and reliability become defining features of Botswanaโs exports. Institutions that endure create predictability. Predictability attracts investment. Investment builds industry. Industry creates jobs and exports. Exports earn the foreign exchange that funds the next cycle of development.
The global economy is fragmenting, regional value chains are being rebuilt and youth unemployment remains a structural risk. The fiscal space created by diamonds will not be there forever. If the delay continue, we will continue to import our food, furniture, processed goods and jobs. If we act, we can build firms that employ thousands, create a middle class rooted in production and give young people a reason to stay and build here.
Botswanaโs next chapter cannot be written in the language of consumption and distribution alone. It must be written in the language of factories that run on time, farms that process and export, workshops that turn local materials into goods the world wants, and young people who see a future in building rather than waiting. Production creates the goods. Industry gives them scale and sophistication. Exports give them a market and force us to be world-class. A reformed, capable public sector, with disciplined SOEs and functional SEZs, makes it all possible by enabling, not obstructing.
Let us choose production over consumption, industry over distribution, and exports over dependence. Let us choose institutions over personalities, responsibility over grievance, and ex*****on over rhetoric. The foundation has been laid. The hands are ready. The systems must now follow. If we act now, the next generation will not inherit a nation that consumes someone elseโs prosperity. They will inherit a nation that produces, competes and endures.
