Botswana

The country that was among the poorest in the world at independence and is now among Africa's most stable, on diamonds and unusually good luck with institutions. Bechuanaland was a British protectorate acquired to block Boer and German expansion, administered from Mafeking outside its own borders, and Britain spent almost nothing there - at independence in September 1966 the country had a few miles of tarred road and almost no secondary schools. Diamonds were found at Orapa the following year. The arrangement Botswana made with De Beers, a fifty-fifty joint venture rather than a royalty, is the reason the revenue built roads, schools and hospitals instead of leaving the country. Seretse Khama, whose marriage to a British woman had led Britain to exile him for six years to avoid offending South Africa, became the first president and left office by election. The Tswana kgotla tradition of public assembly, where a chief's decisions could be argued with in front of everyone, is usually credited with part of the democratic record. HIV prevalence was among the world's highest and treatment programmes have reversed much of it. Gaborone is the capital. The Okavango delta drains into the Kalahari and never reaches the sea. The country has about 2.6 million people in an area the size of France. English and Setswana are both official. Around seventy per cent of the land is Kalahari. Its currency, the pula, is named after the word for rain. Botswana has one of the largest elephant populations in the world.

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