A closer look at the BETP project list reveals a critical mismatch between spending and the transformation goals Botswana urgently needs to achieve Botswana’s Economic Transformation Programme (BETP) is the most ambitious development agenda the country has ever assembled. A USD 32 billion investment pipeline made up of 188 projects across 13 sectors, it promises a new growth model built on high-income ambition, economic diversification, digitalisation, and the creation of 500,000 jobs. No post-independence programme has attempted transformation at this scale.
Yet as the Gazette’s analysis of the full BETP project list shows, an unexpected and worrying pattern emerges:the spending does not match the goals. About 50 % of the BETP Capital Expenditure or CAPEX is allocated to enabling projects that do not themselves generate jobs, diversification, digitalisation or income growth directly — but can create the conditions for others to do so. This has been the classical developer economics model that has been used of the years.
It is assumed that spending on roads and bridges, power generation and transmission, water supply and sanitation, digital backbone infrastructure, border post upgrades, industrial parks ( if not linked to specific firms/value chains ) and lastly transport hubs and airports, directly generate GDP growth jobs and will diversify the economy, but this is no longer the case. Unemployment has risen and GDP declined despite the abundance of infrastructure. This misalignment—not capacity, not funding, not political will—is the single greatest risk to the success of the BETP.
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When the BETP was launched, it was framed around four clear missions: 1) Boosting Employment (labour-absorbing sectors), 2) Enhancing Economic Diversification (growing non-mining GDP to ~70%), 3) driving Growth to High-Income Status and 4) Digitisation and Public-Sector Efficiency. These objectives are sound, necessary and widely supported. They represent exactly what Botswana must achieve as the diamond era fades and global competitiveness becomes the new currency of prosperity.
However, when the Gazette reorganised all 188 BETP projects according to these four missions—rather than by sector—the structure of the plan changed dramatically. A new classification emerged, showing which projects genuinely contribute to the national goals and which serve as enabling or supporting investments. Each BETP project was evaluated using a0–5 Likert scaleagainst Botswana’s four transformation objectives: Job creation,Economic diversification, Digitalisation and public-sector efficiency and Growth in per capita GNI.Scores were derived from the project’s sector characteristics, description, expected economic effects, and evidence from comparable investment types (such as job intensity, diversification potential, productivity gains, and digital readiness).
For each objective, a project was assigned a likelihood score using the following scale: The four scores were then summed to produce a Total Transformation Score out of 20.This provides a consistent, transparent basis for comparing all 188 projects and identifying which investments most strongly support Botswana’s transformation goals. Across all 188 projects in the BETP, the average transformation alignment score is just 9 out of 20—barely mid-table. In other words, the typical BETP project is not strongly aligned with the country’s own transformation objectives.
The highest scoring sectors were financial services, digital and e Government and Agriculture and Food, whereas the lowest transport, water and social protection. Correspondingly, the highest scoring BETP projects were those related to financial services and agro processing as shown in the top ten project league table. A critical consideration is whether BETP provides value against its four overarching objectives.
Using the BETP data set, the analysis in the graph clearly shows that as CAPEX increases along the horizontal axis transformative effectiveness reduces along the vertical axis. Different colours denote different sectors of each project
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