- Joined
- Mar 30, 2019
You're right, I should have been more specific. Botswana isn't economically a 'powerhouse' by say, Western European or American standards (though considering it's starting level of development in 1965 it would be quite unfair to expect it to be in less than 70 years) but considering the absolute state of most of Sub-Saharan Africa in the first few decades after decolonization its relative success is quite an achievement. However, it does surpass several European and East Asian states in lack of corruption (Georgia, Slovakia, Lithuania, Greece, Montenegro, Hungary, Czech Republic, China, Vietnam, Albania, Romania) and political stability (Montenegro, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Serbia, Moldova, France, South Korea). Its GDP per capita is currently larger than Albania, Georgia, Armenia, Macedonia, and Moldova, when at independence in 1966 it was about the same level as Chad, Niger, or the Central African Republic.Botswana isn’t exactly a “powerhouse” economically. It’s a lower middle income economy that relies a lot of agriculture and mining. Plus Botswana’s demographics aren’t that diverse either, they have one dominant ethnic group that make up 80% of the populace (Tswana), meaning that the risk of ethnic civil wars is negated in the country compared to diverse mutt zones like South Africa or the United States.
Botswana's relative ethnic homogeneity definitely helps, no doubt, but it does have a visible white minority (~3-4% of the population, similar to 1980's Zimbabwe or Portuguese Mozambique and Angola) with which racial animus is minimal to virtually non-existent. This can't be said for its neighbors to the east and south. Sure, it has problems with economic inequality (not unusual for any developing or newly-industrializing country) and the AIDS crisis (a large part of it due to shoddy blood transfusions and mothers passing it on to their children) which hit all of southern Africa quite hard, but that doesn't really discount my point that Africa is not a monolith of poverty, disease and war.