An Overview of Botswana's Innovation Vitality

An Overview of Botswana's Innovation Vitality

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GDP Performance (2010-2020)

Botswana experienced fragmented GDP growth between 2010 and 2015, before enjoying steady economic growth between 2016-2018 (growing from USD 14.4 Billion to USD 17.4 Billion). Before the global pandemic, Botswana showed promising economic growth despite a slight blip in 2019. However, despite overall GDP growth from 2010, GDP per Capita growth has been sluggish with a sharp decline in 2020 attributed to the global pandemic.

GDP Forecast

According to IMF's recent World Economic Outlook, Botswana's GDP is projected to amount to over $25 Billion by 2027.

New Business Registrations (2006-2020)

The number of new business registrations in Botswana has risen drastically since 2010: by 2020, the number of new businesses being registered was already 2.24 times more than in 2010. One can assume the number of new businesses in the informal sector is much greater than this. New venture creation is extremely important to economic growth as it indicates citizens and companies are actively creating solutions to problems and competition generally leads to a wider range of options for consumers. An interesting pattern is illustrated below: the number of new businesses registered in 2019 was less than the 2018 figure but there was a surge amid the 2020 pandemic as people seized business opportunities despite the pandemic.

High Tech Exports (2010-2021)

Botswana is not a high-tech-focused nation when it comes to high-tech exports: in 2013, high-tech exports were 0.387% of manufactured exports. Nothing much has changed, in 2021 Hi-tech exports were approximately 0.3444% of manufactured exports.

ICT Service Exports

This measures the value of Information, Communication and Technology services that are exported by a nation. It includes services related to telecommunications, courier, and news-related services. The graph below shows the value of Botswana’s ICT services exports has changed in recent years. Overall, compared to 2010, the value of Botswana's ICT Services exports declined by $7,274,631.00 by 2021 this is despite reaching dizzying heights of approximately $24.46 million in 2018. ICT is important to a Nation’s innovation efforts because it facilitates knowledge-share and connectivity.

Human Capital

The capabilities of a nation’s labour force play a significant role in determining its innovation vitality. Nations with a relatively high proportion of researchers, firms that invest in R&D, and people in R&D tend to be more innovative as they spend more time creating new solutions to problems. World Bank estimates suggest that tertiary enrolment in Botswana is 25% compared to the 40% world average. In 2013, only 185 per million people in Botswana were involved in R&D.

Intellectual Property (IP)

Lately, Botswana has been doing a reasonable job of commercializing IP: in 2011 Botswana's IP receipts were a paltry $13,970 compared to 2019's peak of $1,322,085. Despite reaching 7 figures in 2019, IP receipts were only $482,791 in 2021. Botswana needs to do a lot more work to commercialize its IP compared to other African countries such as Kenya ($55,479,004) and South Africa ($135,303,751).

As illustrated by the graph above, Botswana's patent applications averaged a meagre 3 applications a year between 2018 to 2021 (South Africa averaged 7869 applications per year during the same period). This suggests that truly novel inventions are scarce. This could be attributed to the low number of scientists and people in Research & Development in the country.

Trademark applications are indicators of new businesses or products entering the marketplace. Trademarks can also represent incremental innovation as opposed to radical innovation represented by patents. Botswana's trademark applications are significantly more than its patent applications (as is the case for most nations).

Despite the healthy number of new businesses entering the market annually, Botswana needs to intensify its Innovation Vitality in areas such as novel inventions, human capital, and technological advancement.