On Stability and Continuity VII

G. E. Gorfu

When Bechuanaland became free in 1966, this small country to the north of South Africa bordering Zimbabwe, Namibia, Zambia, and Angola, had over half a million people, only 12 kilometers of paved road, 22 University graduates, and a 100 high-school graduates. More than half the country was in the Kalahari Desert, and economic forecasts were very dim. It was just another African country without much prospect for any progress or development. Bechuanaland, however, soon became Botswana, and proved world economists and forecasters totally wrong.

Botswana is landlocked, but in spite of these seemingly impossible odds, it has so far “performed not only well, but also better than any country in the world... It had a PPP-adjusted per-capita income of $5,796 in 1998, almost four times the average for Africa, and from 1965 to 1998, its economy grew at an annual rate of 7.7%.” (1) The population too, has tripled to over 1.6 million since independence.

Why has Botswana done so well? Diamonds make up 40% of its export, and 70 – 80% of its foreign exchange. These have helped in the rapid growth, but for many other African countries such as oil in Nigeria, diamonds in Angola, radioactive minerals in Zaire (Congo), gold in Sierra Leone… etc., , natural resources have been a curse, due to civil wars or intense infighting for their control. Botswana, however, has never had a civil war or infighting to control these diamonds or their revenues.

Analysts agree it is the stable political system and institutions of public and private property that enabled Botswana to achieve so well. How did this come about? That takes us to the farsighted leadership of the first President, Seretse Khama and his successor Quett Masire, who created genuine democracy, not only through “fair and free elections”, but also through passing and implementing policies and laws of effective property rights, and fully enfranchising the common people.

These policies are “…effective property rights for a large segment of society, both against state expropriation and predation by private agents, and by creating relative political stability to ensure the continuity of these Property Rights …and with effective constraints on rulers and political elites to control arbitrary and extractive behavior.” (2) Ethiopia lags far behind here and has much to learn from Botswana.

When large segments of the population get such legal protections, they “buy into the system” and see themselves as partners in the political structure because they have something to lose if the system fails. But when political and economic power is concentrated in the hands of a few elites, the population knows deep at heart that it has been cheated and disenfranchised. The “one man one vote” is then seen as mere ritual repeated every five years, or so, without substance or benefit. Full property rights could give genuine democracy a chance of taking root in Ethiopia.

1) http://web.mit.edu/sjohnson/www/attach/Botswanafinal1%20Sept%201%202001.pdf

2) Harvey and Lewis (1990), Good (1992) and Leith (2000), or Colclough and McCarthy (1980) Quotes have been slightly paraphrased; emphasis in italics and the underline are mine.

To be continued…