Leadership

Botswana is an African country that most people know little about but there are some important lessons that can be learned by looking at the countries history since it became independent in 1966. The first and most important is the election of Seretse Khama as its president. His goal was to create a democratic country and he selected leaders based on merit and not the old tribal favorites method used by other African countries. Out of a population of 500,000 people only 100 finished high school and 22 went on to college. Khama recognized that education was the means to growth and development and so he spent the countries limited wealth on financing a better education system. Overtime as people became literate they were able to increased their contribution to the society. As the education program expanded Kharma turned his attention to health care. Africa was known for its vast natural resources so Kharma invited foreign investments in things like copper. This led to the discover of diamonds and instead of allowing the profits to go to individual tribes he used the money to build infrastructure like roads to facilitate business growth. In the past 60 years Botswana has moved from one of the poorest countries to one approaching Western standards of living. The secret was leadership, selecting people based on merit and concentrating on education and healthcare. The US could learn a few things from this countries experience and finding good leadership is at the top of the list.