Botswana's relative prosperity is due mainly to years of economic growth supported by development of the country's diamond resources. I guess this relative prosperity is linked to the absence of corruption, which seems to have helped Botswana escape the "resource curse" that afflicts so many resource-rich African countries. I suppose it offers hope of a similar virtuous circle of an anti-corruption culture and economic development emerging in other resource-rich countries. How one gets there is of course the problem.

Thank heaven's that Botswana does not have a Greens Party Rhian, or they would close down the diamond mines because they are capitalist polluters. What Australia needs is black policemen with their unique cultural heritage of rampant corruption which we should encourage because we love multiculturalism. We can then narrow the gap between rich and poor countries by making Australia as poor and ungovernable as every other African country.

Australia should do more to embrace the rare successful third world country where corruption has been minimized.
Rather than giving foreign aid to the poorest countries, knowing that so much of it still ends up in the pockets of middle men, why not to countries like Botswana, so as to give a signal that if those countries make the first step of being truly democratic and attacking corruption, we will then come to the party with help for further development.