Botswana-South Africa economic relations: a history, 1966-2014

English: This thesis examines economic relations between Botswana and South Africa from 1966 to 2014 from Botswana’s perspective. It begins by describing different historical junctures in the economic history of the two countries, including but not limited to, the renegotiation of the Southern African Customs Union in 1969, which was required after the independence of the British High Commission territories, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland. It suggests that though the renegotiated agreement was far from ideal, it was better than the original 1910 agreement. The thesis examines Botswana’s transition from a pastoral economy to one based on minerals, particularly diamonds from 1966 and 1972. It argues that Botswana’s tremendous economic growth in this period was buttressed by the partnership between the Botswana government and De Beers, a large South African mining company. Working together, their partnership formed Debswana, one of the biggest diamond companies in the world. This period was touted as Botswana’s economic miracle, but Botswana’s economic dependence on South Africa was never far from the surface, something the apartheid regime took advantage of in the 1980s. Expectations after 1994 of a fundamentally changed economic relationship between the two states were soon disabused. Overall, the thesis questions the extent to which Botswana escaped from the shadow cast by its vastly bigger neighbour, South Africa.