Botswana's Economic Success

Essay from the year 2013 in the subject Politics - Topic: Globalization, Political Economics, grade: 1,0, Indiana University (Department of Political Science), course: Politics of International Development, language: English, abstract: Botswana is a landlocked country in southern Africa with a population of about 2 million people. It used to be one of the poorest countries in Africa, but after it gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1966, it went on a transformation to a middle-income country with a per capita GDP of $16,800 in 2012 (cf. Central Intelligence Agency 2013). Today, Botswana is a multi-ethnic and multi-party representative democracy with "e;inclusive institutions"e; and the least corrupt country in Sub-Saharan Africa (cf. Transparency International 2012). It is ranked by Freedom House as "e;Free"e; and has a very high HIV rate of 24.8%. Botswana has been framed as an exceptional economic success story in Africa and the following essay will explore whether institutions are the only cause of Botswana s economic success and if Botswana is experiencing modern economic growth.