22 February 2026
Botswana is in talks with international pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce generic drugs locally as it recovers from a public health emergency triggered by Western aid cuts and a hole in public finances caused by low diamond prices, the health minister Dr Stephen Modise told Semafor.
The southern African country, which is the world’s top diamond producer by value, declared a public health emergency last August due to a shortage of essential medicines and medical equipment. The government said it owed around $75 million to private health facilities and suppliers, and deployed the military to oversee a distribution drive to repair medical supply chains.
In an interview, Minister Modise said that while medicines are now more widely available, nationwide the focus is on building strong supply chains with locally manufactured drugs to overcome the high cost of importing medication. He said his government is in talks with manufacturers in India with expertise in producing generic versions of drugs to set up operations in Botswana for a fixed period of time and training locals who would then take over. Health ministry officials and the ministry of trade are also devising tax breaks to incentivise local manufacturing, said Modise.
The minister further said work is underway with other southern African countries to manufacture drugs locally and pool resources across borders.
“We’ve been talking to our neighbours to see if we can work together because we share a number of similar vulnerabilities,” he said, adding that discussions had been held with South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
“Pooled procurement is a very effective way of getting medicines as a bloc because you’re able to leverage on that to get competitive pricing and buy for a larger amount of people,” he said
“It’s a conversation that our neighbours are pretty much on board with.”
Botswana’s economy has been hit by a prolonged downturn in the precious stones international market. The country relies on diamond sales for about 80% of foreign exchange earnings and around a third of national revenue. However, global diamond sales have been hit by oversupply and the rising popularity of lab-grown gems.
This month, the Finance minister said Botswana’s economy is projected to grow by 3.1% this year after two successive years of contraction, but debt is expected to rise beyond the government’s statutory ceiling owing to a large budget deficit.
Modise told Semafor that the government was now looking to increase revenues from its agriculture and tourism sectors after many decades as a “monosectoral economy.”
The economic strain was exacerbated by the impact of the US cutting aid that supported the country’s health sector — Washington funded a third of Botswana’s HIV response, according to UNAIDS.
“Over-reliance on aid is not helpful because then you’re vulnerable and reliant on who comes in as the leader of that government,” said the minister. “We cannot be perpetual beggars.”
Botswana’s health crisis is significant because it’s a cautionary tale for other African countries. For years, the southern African country has been lauded as a model of good governance. And it has benefited from its decades-long diamond mining arrangement with De Beers. Unlike other countries that merely export their commodities, Botswana has created jobs by developing a local diamond-cutting and polishing industry, alongside jewellery manufacturing.
Despite its successes, it’s now clear that Botswana’s economy was built on shaky ground. An effective government must ensure its citizens are healthy and well educated.
That combination makes for a happy society and ensures a populace that drives a productive economy for years to come. That is why Botswana’s current healthcare crisis should not be taken lightly.
The solutions pursued by the government are sensible and show that it has learned — not just from the twin crises of plunging diamond prices and aid cuts, but also the global COVID-19 crisis. The scramble for vaccines, in which advanced economies quickly snatched urgent pandemic supplies for their nations, highlighted the need for local drug manufacturing. That approach cuts the costs of medicines, creates local jobs, and instills the spirit of self-reliance and the ability to better cope with global shocks. As a country of just 2.5 million people with similarly small neighbours such as Eswatini and Lesotho, it also makes sense to pool resources.
Cloudius Ray Sagandira, principal researcher at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, a South African research and development organisation, pointed to several challenges that hold back local drug manufacturing in an article for The Conversation. African countries still import most of the raw materials needed to make the ingredients, which makes local production expensive and vulnerable to foreign pricing, he wrote. He also highlighted a shortage of skilled workers, limited access to capital, outdated infrastructure, and unreliable electricity access as major challenges.
The view from London
Botswana’s heavy reliance on diamonds is not an isolated case in Africa. David Omojomolo, Africa economist at Capital Economics in London, says a number of other African economies rely heavily on specific commodities.
“Nigeria particularly stands out on over-reliance,” he said, because about 90% of its export revenues are derived from oil and gas. By contrast, he pointed to Ghana, the continent’s top gold producer, where about 55% of export revenues come from precious metals and 16% from oil & gas.
Botswana needs “higher and sustained productivity growth” to escape the “middle-income trap,” economy experts wrote in a World Bank blog.
Source: https://shorturl.at/b2K1N
