Botswana Vice President Ndaba Nkosinathi Gaolathe on youth unemployment, economic diversification and partnering with the OPEC Fund

As part of our Development Forum interview series, we spoke with Ndaba Nkosinathi Gaolathe, Vice President and Minister of Finance of Botswana, about the country’s development priorities, its strategy to diversify the economy and the country’s growing engagement with the OPEC Fund.

What are Botswana's development priorities? How can events like our Development Forum help translate your goals into tangible partnerships and results?

Botswana’s biggest challenge is our high unemployment levels, particularly among young people. It's not just high unemployment levels among young people though, but high unemployment levels among educated young people.

We also face a dampening diamond market. We’ve long been dependent on diamonds, which at one time constituted more than 90 percent of our exports. Our challenge now is to diversify and build an economy that is inclusive and provides opportunities for all our citizens.

Another challenge is finding new revenue sources to finance the government’s development agenda. Events like this are useful because they provide platforms for dialogue and finding the right strategic partners. It's about nourishing relationships based on trust. There's no substitute for direct contact and one-on-one relations. Here at the OPEC Fund Development Forum we have found partners that share our values. We have found partners that have experiences, insights and resources to help build the new Botswana.

You mentioned that Botswana is diversifying economically. Can you narrow that down to particular sectors which have the best potential?

Botswana has been very fortunate in that we are wealthy with natural resources. We have iron ore, diamonds, gold, silver, manganese and copper, but what we have not been able to do is build the capacity to process.

One avenue for diversifying our economy is to build a whole new ecosystem for processing our copper and manganese to produce batteries. We are also using our soda ash to produce chemicals and glass. There are tremendous opportunities and we are beginning to see investors coming to participate in that.

It's not just mineral wealth. There are also opportunities for commercial agriculture, both arable and pastoral. Traditionally, we’ve been one of the foremost exporters of beef, but there's a lot more we can do to develop the value chain. Food production is a big part of it.

The other sector that we are looking to diversify into and build is our financial services sector. We’ve just signed an agreement with the OPEC Fund to co-develop our financial services sector.

I mentioned at the beginning that we have a highly educated youth. It's an opportunity, so we are already doing a rapid upskill in AI and technology. Digital innovation is also a big part of diversification.

Partnership Snapshot

The OPEC Fund and Botswana enjoy a long-standing and trusted partnership built on shared development goals. Since 1977, the OPEC Fund has approved nearly US$200 million in public sector financing across 14 completed projects, supporting key national priorities such as transport, education, governance and infrastructure. This includes financing for two international airports and a major highway that helped strengthen connectivity and open up new opportunities for rural communities.

In 2025, the partnership entered a new phase with the approval of a US$200 million policy-based loan to co-finance Botswana’s Governance and Economic Resilience Support Programme, developed in collaboration with the African Development Bank. The operation supports Botswana’s efforts to enhance fiscal resilience, improve governance and accelerate digital reforms.

Also in 2025, the OPEC Fund and the Government of Botswana signed a new Country Partnership Framework to guide joint efforts over the next three years. The framework focuses on advancing infrastructure development, renewable energy, innovation and digital transformation, as well as export-led private sector growth—all aligned with Botswana’s national vision under it National Development Plan.