Since taking office in late 2024, Botswana’s President Duma Boko has made the digitalization of the administration one of the cornerstones of his governance, with a clear objective: to eliminate waste, strengthen transparency, and bring the state closer to its citizens. This ambition is embodied in the Botswana Economic Transformation Plan (BETP), launched in 2025, which places information technologies at the heart of economic diversification and the improvement of public services.
The president has been particularly forthright on this subject before his ministers and senior officials, demanding that every administrative action from tax collection to passport issuance be traceable in real time.
In his view, this is an indispensable condition for breaking with working methods deemed archaic and moving beyond the bureaucratic red tape that hampers state efficiency.
Concretely, this vision is translating into tangible progress. The 1Gov-1Citizen platform, the cornerstone of Botswana’s digital administration, has seen its range of online services grow from 33 to 52, now covering teacher registration, administrative appointment booking, and facilitation of business procedures.
The country has also equipped itself with a dedicated legal framework the Digital Services Act as well as a new Digital Services Authority tasked with setting common interoperability, cybersecurity, and governance standards for all ministries.
The stated goal is a « digital-by-default » government within three years, where technology would no longer be a mere modernization tool but a genuine lever for public accountability.
By betting on artificial intelligence and broadband expansion, the authorities also hope to diversify an economy still largely dependent on mining resources.
For Duma Boko, this digital battle goes beyond mere administrative efficiency: it is presented as a condition for citizen trust and good governance, in a country that aspires to remain one of Africa’s reference points for transparency and technological innovation.
