Policy Choice and Development Performance in Botswana

At independence in 1966 Botswana was one of the world's poorest countries: devastated by drought, dependent on Britain for half the cost of the current budget, with no capital city and only a few miles of tarred road, and only 80 students in the fifth year of secondary school. In the next twenty years Botswana had the fastest rate of economic growth of any country in the world. That was partly due to the discovery of several mines which were large in relation to the economy. This book analyses the management of mineral wealth, the extent to which economic policy also contributed to growth, and how rapid growth affected the people of Botswana, rural and urban, rich and poor.