Africa-Press – Botswana. In late June 2025, the Gaborone City Council issued a directive that sent ripples through the city’s informal economy: car washes operating in open spaces and road reserves were to cease operations immediately, deemed illegal under Section 30 of the Town and Country Planning Act. Non-compliance, the statement warned, would invite legal action.
The announcement was clinical in tone, justified by planning laws and environmental concerns. But to many Batswana – especially the youth and underemployed trying to survive in a stagnating economy – it landed as a punch to the gut. A bureaucratic move against their daily bread, it wasn’t just about soap and space. It was about survival – and the right to earn a living in a country where formal opportunities are increasingly scarce.
This decision, however technically legal, is profoundly tone-deaf. It reflects a narrow urban logic – one that prioritises order over opportunity, regulation over resilience. Worse still, it reveals a deeper institutional blindness: Botswana’s struggle to reconcile its formal success with its informal realities. A country lauded globally for fiscal prudence and political stability is now cracking down on the very people hustling to stay afloat.
A troubling paradox
Botswana is often celebrated as one of Africa’s rare success stories – resource-rich, politically stable, and institutionally sound. Since independence, it has turned diamond wealth into free primary education, near-universal public healthcare, and a governance model praised for low corruption and macroeconomic discipline. This is a country that, on paper, has done nearly everything right. And yet, beneath that shining veneer of fiscal rectitude and democratic continuity lurks a troubling paradox.
Despite material achievements, Botswana has not fully translated economic prosperity into social equity or human dignity. Rigid traditional norms, especially around gender and power, remain entrenched. The result is a country rich in wealth but constrained by a slow-moving engine of social transformation.
During just two weeks of the 2024 festive season, 93 rapes and 10 murders of women were reported. A UN report from January 2025 has cited 60 rapes, 19 murders, and 13 defilements in a similar timeframe. Nearly 61% of recorded crimes were gender-based. Botswana now ranks among the highest in global rape statistics, with lifetime sexual violence affecting between 45% and 60% of women.
A “culture of violence”
Laws exist – the Domestic Violence Act (2008), GBV courts, dedicated police units – but enforcement is patchy and conviction rates remain low. The judicial process is slow and intimidating. Most tragically, the culture of impunity remains intact. Even more disturbing: spousal rape remains legal, protected under customary law that assumes marital consent is permanent.
These aren’t just outdated traditions. They are devastating norms. Economic dependence, stigma, and under-resourced psychosocial services leave many women trapped, silenced and harmed. Mental health support is rare, especially in rural areas.
Botswana’s own Commissioner of Police has called it what it is: a “culture of violence.” Deep-seated patriarchy, alcohol abuse, and inherited attitudes normalise control and aggression. A UK government briefing recently noted that while 90% of Batswana say they oppose “disciplining wives”, the reality on the ground is often different – especially where customary law still dominates, shielding perpetrators and marginalising victims.
This is the crux of Botswana’s enigma: a fiscally sound, middle-income nation that struggles to deliver social justice. Progressive laws are often passed, but without the institutional will – or cultural reckoning – to make them real. The result? A nation celebrated abroad but fractured at home. This is a society of two faces: one gleaming in reports and rankings, the other quietly bearing its wounds.
The state sees only disorder
And the car wash crackdown fits right into this picture. Just like the criminalisation of informal alcohol brewing or informal public transport, it reflects a system that fails to see the innovation, resilience, and economic intelligence within the informal sector. Instead of recognising these self-organised enterprises as evidence of social grit, the state sees only disorder.
But all is not bleak. Botswana’s youth, especially through civil society and grassroots organisations, are pushing back. NGOs like Women Against Rape, BONELA, and Feminist Alliance Botswana are reshaping the conversation. Survivors like Malebogo Molefhe, who lived through an assassination attempt by her partner, are mentoring others and leading programmes that blend healing with activism. Their message is uncompromising: this must end.
But advocacy alone cannot change structural inertia. Botswana must learn to think in systems – not silos.
In 2013–14, the country piloted a mobile-based GBV referral platform. It linked police, clinics, social workers, NGOs, and even tribal authorities in a real-time network centred on survivors. It didn’t build new clinics or fund new officers. Instead, it connected existing institutions and aligned them. The result? Better referrals, quicker services, fewer cases falling through the cracks.
Not just water and sponges
This is the power of systems thinking: to weave the existing into something new.
And this logic applies to economic inclusion too. The informal car washes scattered across Gaborone aren’t just water and sponges. They are micro-economies with supply chains, local pricing systems, informal credit schemes, and apprenticeship models. What they lack isn’t legitimacy but infrastructure.
So why not formalise them? Imagine micro-enterprise zones: designated areas with clean water access, drainage, licensing support, group savings schemes, and mentorship from local entrepreneurs. With just a bit of structural support, what today looks like urban chaos becomes a model for dignified self-employment. Not only does this reduce poverty – it boosts environmental compliance, encourages youth entrepreneurship and lowers crime.
This is not speculation. Other countries are doing it. From Kigali to Lagos, municipalities are rethinking how to work with informal economies, not against them.
The same goes for education and public health. Rather than moralising about teenage pregnancy or issuing top-down warnings, NGOs like Youth Impact (formerly Young 1ove) created peer-led programmes – like “No Sugar” – that use randomised control trials to show girls the tangible risks of dating older men. The results? A 40% drop in teen pregnancies, safer sex choices, and increased school retention.
Innovation isn’t just tech
What made it work? Three things: credible peer messengers, culturally relevant design, and hard evidence.
At the Botswana Innovation Hub, there’s a growing awareness that innovation isn’t just tech. It’s social experimentation. The hub now supports GBV-response apps, youth employment platforms, and local service-delivery pilots. Not every project works, but the goal isn’t perfection. It’s to test, learn, iterate and scale.
Botswana doesn’t need to build new institutions. It needs to connect the ones it has – across ministries, across sectors, across cultures. It must map its informal systems (car washes, peer networks, local courts), identify leverage points (licensing, training, mobile platforms), and pilot quick, adaptive solutions. Then embed what works into national frameworks – without waiting for perfection.
Afterall, Botswana already has what so many countries lack: stability, natural wealth, and governance capacity. What it needs now is vision – and the humility to co-create that vision with those currently excluded from it.
Scaling adaptive innovations
Banning car washes may tidy the city’s aesthetics but will deepen the disconnect between policy and people. It sends the wrong signal – that grassroots hustle is a nuisance rather than a national asset. In the process, it risks pushing more young people into despair, illegality, or dependency.
Instead of punishing ingenuity, Botswana should be unleashing it.
By formalising informal work, digitising GBV support, investing in culturally smart education, and scaling adaptive innovations, Botswana can close the gap between its wealth and its well-being.
And in doing so, it might just become the kind of success story that not only manages prosperity but transforms lives.
Source: Botswana Gazette
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