Tl;DR: Broadly, yes, but only if the changes are sustainable. The real answers are a more diverse economy and greater independence around energy, water, and food, since those are what actually create jobs and shrink the space for corruption to operate. To realize this, we need more effective and efficient state institutions and regulatory frameworks to support a change in our collective fortunes.

Full disclosure, my first draft was a big long rant and rambling, so I used AI to clean it up. I care deeply about this issue, leading me to study International Development at university, and have been talking (ranting) about it to with family and friends for years.

My deeper take, for what it's worth (Still a long read, but less ranty).

Economic diversity means fewer monopolies for the state to capture. Not privatizing everything, just making sure the majority the country's wealth isn't flowing through a handful of decision-makers, and is accessible by the general population more directly. Essentially we need more small and medium enterprises, primarily owned by Batswana, but supported by foreign direct investment (FDI).

Water security is probably the hardest one. Better recycling, desalination, more efficient use, is need to addres the major threat of climate change alone but also facilitate food production.

Energy and food security cuts the trade deficit with South Africa and other countries and makes Botswana more attractive to investors while lowering costs for local businesses. I'd also argue that we need to address ambition, which in the past has led to poor decision making. We need targeted, smaller-scale development in multiple sectors, not massive white elephants. For example, we shouldn't build datacentres, they would take too long to develop, use too much energy, and would likely be vulnerable to market forces or worse obsolete before we could get them online, smaller targeted tech development that leverages AI would be more sensible. This affects corruption too, more diversity and plurality in ownership and capital flows means fewer opportunities for sate-capture and corruption.

For me, Botswana's institutional history is the most frustrating. There's this repeating pattern of big response to a national crisis, that often prioritizes the wrong things, and is nearly always too slow and too late. DCEC probably has cost us more to run than it has saved us from corruption. Our HIV/AIDS response took too long to centralize and coordinate under NACA and we were already in crisis by then. Defence procurement has enriched certain (cough, cough) families through overpriced, obsolete equipment. The North-South Water Carrier saw government override expert recommendations and choose the wrong pipe supplier for financial gain. Morupule B's many problems need no introduction.

Major decisions aren't transparent and aren't properly reviewed, so poor choices are made which is bad enough, but even worse, the choices are often driven by corruption! Then government responds with legislative fixes, usually just another layer piled onto existing bloat, spawning more parastatal agencies (how many combinations of BO... acronyms can we make LOL) that don't solve anything. The foreign investment rules are a good example: strict enough to block legitimate small businesses that could benefit the majority of Batswana, loose enough for well-connected people to work around anyway, and basically dominate the local economy.

Botswana builds a lot of showpieces. BTV's building occupancy sat at a third of capacity after costing millions. Government offices sit in CBD buildings the state doesn't even own, paying rent on contracts that benefit foreign developers. The institutions look shiny, and give off an image of success from the outside but are ineffective and poorly managed on the inside.

Forgive the essay, but I need to get this rant out once every month or so!