Top diamond producer Botswana’s new President Duma Boko said on Thursday that he hoped to clinch a long-delayed sales pact with industry giant De Beers as early as Friday but underlined the need to diversify the Southern African nation’s economy.diversify.
Boko, a 55-year-old lawyer, won a landslide election in November to take control of Botswana, one of Africa’s richest countries, after nearly 60 years of rule by the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP).
Speaking to Reuters Next Newsmaker at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Boko said his government agreed with De Beers on many issues. He added that all that remained was tidying up the agreement and finalise the deal. Asked by Reuters reporter Alessandra Galloni when the deal would be signed, Boko said: “I hope it will be tomorrow.”
Like many African countries, Botswana’s economy is largely dependent on the export of a single commodity – in its case, diamonds, of which it is the world’s leading producer by value.
Unlike many of its continental neighbours, its leaders have invested their commodity windfall in health, education and social welfare.
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The strategy has largely paid off. Botswana’s GDP per capita was $7,250 in 2023 – compared with an average for sub-Saharan Africa of $4,800, World Bank data shows.
Analysts, however, blamed mounting economic grievances, particularly among young people, for the downfall of the BDP, which had governed the nation of around 2.5 million people since independence from Britain in 1966.
On the campaign trail, Boko’s coalition pledged to more than double the minimum wage, improve social services and create a more independent judiciary, among other measures. He faces a daunting task to make this happen.
