Botswana faces economic confrontation, WEF warns

Botswana’s gravest economic danger is not declining health outcomes, widening inequality or rising debt. It is the the emergence of a global system increasingly defined by confrontation, retaliation and power politics, warns World Economic Forum (WEF) in what it describes as an “age of competition,” According to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2026, geoeconomic confrontation has emerged as the most likely trigger of crisis for Botswana this year.

The term encompasses the growing use of tariffs, sanctions, investment barriers and supply-chain controls as tools of state power. For a small, open economy like Botswana’s, the consequences are potentially severe.