Botswana and Natural Recourses

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Lately in class we have been talking about the Natural Resource curse and how it can destroy countries. We have seen many examples of countries that do not use their resources correctly or do not have a strong enough government to control them. We then read an article on the opposite side of the spectrum and got to hear about a country that does use its resources to prosper and grow their economy. In 2002 Botswana exported 2 billion dollars worth of diamonds, nickel, gold and other natural resources. They are able to grow their economy using these natural resources because they have good government policies, strong leadership and a good long term developemental plan for the economy. With out these things you could have all the diamonds in the world and they would just cause problems. Botswana is a very unique country given its location. When we think of Africa we stereotype all the countries there to be extremely poor with no functioning government.

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