Botswana, an African success story, looks ever less exceptional

In 1966 Botswana’sgdp future looked grim. On the eve of its independence from Britain the country had 12km of paved roads, a hundred secondary-school graduates and a per person that was half the average in sub-Saharan Africa. Today it has the highest average income on the African mainland, save for the odd petrostate. And it has always been a democracy.This success would have been impossible without diamonds. In 1967 De Beers, which then had a near-monopoly of global production and today remains the largest miner by value, discovered what would become Orapa, the world’s biggest open-pit diamond mine. Whereas such windfalls have been squandered across Africa, Botswana’s first few leaders forged a productive partnership with the firm. They used the proceeds from diamond mining to keep public debt low and create rainy-day funds, all the while improving health care, education and infrastructure.