Botswana was ranked 55th out of 67 countries assessed, rising from the previous year’s position of 59. Botswana emerged above African titans such as South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana.
Though similar to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) more well-known Global Competitive Report, the IMD assessment provides a more in-depth analysis to guide focused actions. Botswana signed up for the IMD competitiveness assessment four years ago, while the WEF’s analysis has been in limbo since 2020.
This year a total of 67 countries faced off globally to establish the leading competitive country across four categories being Business Efficiency, Economic Efficiency, Government Efficiency and Infrastructure.
According to the world competitiveness yearbook, Botswana has managed to muscle significant improvement due to an uptick in the categories under review, allowing it to increase its overall assessed score from 45.2 to 50.3 out of 100.
“Botswana moved four places up and was ranked 55 out of 67 countries in 2024, improving from a ranking of 59 out of 64 countries in 2023. “Similarly, Botswana’s overall score improved from 45.26 out of 100 in 2023 to 50.31 out of 100 in 2024, where 100 is the highest possible score” the yearbook revealed.
The economic factor which assesses the effectiveness of a country’s macroeconomic environment in promoting competitiveness was the pullback factor which weighed on Botswana’s performance. This was due to a poor performance in various underlying factors such as soaring unemployment, and skewed international trade patterns.
“Notably, domestic economy and international trade sub-factors ranked 60 and 67 out of 67 countries respectively in 2024 compared to 58 and 63 out of 64 countries in 2023,” the IMD researchers noted. “The high level of unemployment particularly youth unemployment is among the least performing for the employment sub-factor.”
The strongest performance came from the Business Efficiency factor which saw the country ranking 47 out of 67 countries in 2024 compared to 50 out of 64 countries in 2023. The country improved with regards to labour inclusion and improvement in stock market capitalisation.
“Indicators contributing positively to the labour market include number of women in management (1st in 67 countries), percentage of female labour force (4th), and stock market capitalization contribution to GDP,” the report stated. While last year’s performance was also weighed down by infrastructure, most sub-factors improved in 2024 except for technological infrastructure. One notable improvement was in the education sub-factor where the ranking rose from 51 out of 64 countries in 2023 to 46 out of 67 countries in 2024. Total public expenditure on education was ranked first in the world, while one of the greatest weaknesses was the average speed of internet bandwidth speed which was ranked last in the group of 67 countries.
