POLITICS & CURRENT AFFAIRS
Botswana Medicine Shortage 2025: How a Health Crisis Exposed a Broken System
Botswana’s 2025 medicine shortage emptied pharmacy shelves and triggered a national health emergency. Behind the immediate crisis was a more troubling vulnerability: a healthcare system heavily exposed to falling diamond revenues, external funding decisions and procurement weaknesses that remain unresolved.
The Thucydides Trap: When a Rising Power Stops Asking for Permission
The Statement That Was Not a Question On May 14, 2026, during a high-stakes summit in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping turned to his American counterpart and posed a question that had been simmering in the halls of global power for over a decade: “Can China and...
Tembisa is Not Sandton: The Quiet Faith of Building vs. The Loud Force of Blaming
Two women. Born same year. Same country. But different worlds. In the theatre of modern South African life, there’s a tale not often told with clarity - a tale of method. Not morality. A tale of how one arrives at power, not just that one possesses it. And in this...
BUSINESS & TRADE
Botswana Sovereign Wealth Fund: Can It Build a Future Beyond Diamonds?
Botswana has launched a new sovereign wealth fund as diamond revenues decline and pressure mounts to diversify the economy. Its governance ambitions are promising—but the bigger question is whether the country has a clear enough investment strategy to turn savings into a genuinely post-diamond economy.
Lab-Grown Diamonds vs Botswana: How a Global Shift Is Breaking the Diamond Economy.
Lab-grown diamonds are cheaper, increasingly popular and rapidly reshaping the global jewellery market. For Botswana, whose development model was built on natural diamonds, this is more than an industry disruption—it is an economic shock forcing the country to confront what comes after diamonds.
Botswana De Beers Acquisition: A Bold Power Move—or a Multi-Billion-Pula Risk?
Botswana wants greater control over the diamond industry that built its economy. But with revenues falling and the natural diamond market under pressure, acquiring a majority stake in De Beers could become either a historic economic power move—or an extraordinarily expensive gamble.
OPINION & PERSPECTIVE
Women in Botswana: 57% of Graduates, Still Missing from Leadership
Women now make up the majority of Botswana’s university graduates, yet that educational success has not translated into equal economic power or leadership representation. Somewhere between graduation and the boardroom, Botswana is losing much of the female talent it has successfully developed.
Botswana Medicine Shortage 2025: How a Health Crisis Exposed a Broken System
Botswana’s 2025 medicine shortage emptied pharmacy shelves and triggered a national health emergency. Behind the immediate crisis was a more troubling vulnerability: a healthcare system heavily exposed to falling diamond revenues, external funding decisions and procurement weaknesses that remain unresolved.
The AI Question Botswana Cannot Avoid
Botswana released a National AI Strategy in 2023 and allocated P900 million to digital transformation in its FY2025/26 budget — but youth unemployment sits at 44% and the National AI Policy remains unenacted. Is Botswana adapting to artificial intelligence fast enough to protect its labour market?
YOUTH & EDUCATION
Botswana Youth Unemployment: Is Education Training Graduates for Jobs That No Longer Exist?
Botswana’s youth unemployment crisis is not only about a shortage of jobs. It also exposes a deeper mismatch between what schools and universities prepare young people to do and the skills demanded by the economy Botswana says it wants to build.
Botswana Mental Health Crisis: The Invisible Emergency Growing in Plain Sight.
Depression, suicidal thoughts and psychological distress are affecting significant numbers of young Batswana, while the country has only a tiny specialist mental-health workforce. The crisis is growing, but the infrastructure required to diagnose, treat and even properly measure it remains severely limited.
Women in Botswana: 57% of Graduates, Still Missing from Leadership
Women now make up the majority of Botswana’s university graduates, yet that educational success has not translated into equal economic power or leadership representation. Somewhere between graduation and the boardroom, Botswana is losing much of the female talent it has successfully developed.
CULTURE & TOURISM
Okavango Delta 2026: Climate, Elephants and the Fight to Protect Botswana’s Wilderness Brand.
The Okavango Delta remains one of Botswana’s greatest natural and economic assets, but climate variability, high elephant densities and pressure to expand tourism are testing the model that protects it. Preserving Botswana’s premium wilderness brand may now require more deliberate management than ever before.
Okavango Delta Tourism: Who Profits from Botswana’s $2,500-a-Night Safari Economy?
Botswana’s Okavango Delta attracts some of the world’s highest-paying safari travellers and supports a celebrated low-volume, high-value tourism model. But as tourism becomes increasingly important to the economy, a harder question emerges: how much of that extraordinary value actually reaches Batswana and surrounding communities?
Setswana’s Struggle for Relevance in the Digital Age
Setswana is spoken by the vast majority of Botswana’s 2.6 million people — yet higher education, digital platforms, and formal employment in Botswana operate almost exclusively in English. As Botswana pursues AI-led economic growth, is the country building a knowledge economy its own language cannot fully participate in?