Anatomy of success.

Tom Nevin profiles the ground-breaking achievements of the former President of Botswana, Sir Kitumile Masire (right).

There was a time, not so long ago, when Botswana was rated amongst the world's 25 poorest countries. When it achieved independence from Britain in 1966, its 1m people were largely uneducated, subsisting on an annual per capita income of less than $50. The barren Kalahari semi-desert that occupies most of Botswana is of little agricultural use and a meaningful manufacturing sector was a seemingly impossible dream. The world was ready to write Botswana off as another Third World basket case.

Botswana's former President, Sir Ketumile Masire, remembers it all well. In those days with Sir Seretse Khama as the new nation's first President and Masire as his Deputy and Finance Minister, little seemed to be in the fledgling nation's favour. But both leaders knew that their country's economic deliverance lay in the bounty of gems and ores hidden in the Kalahari sands.

They also realised that Botswana had neither the mining expertise nor the financial muscle to uncover the wealth, especially of diamonds, that lay waiting.

"We decided we should open the country to investors, so we cut the country up into areas and gave out exploitation concessions," recalls Sir Masire. They sweetened the pot further. Exploration costs were written off and generous tax incentives were extended.

When Seretse Khama and Ketumile Masire took the plunge, they immediately began swimming against a tide of African national socialism. In Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda had launched his programme of 'humanism' that would eventually result in the nationalisation of foreign assets. In Tanzania, Julius Nyerere's 'ujamaa' brand of socialism was sweeping the country. Newly-independent countries throughout Africa were leaning to the left, and the soldiers of the revolution against white-ruled Rhodesia were being armed both militarily and ideologically by the communist countries of Europe and Asia.

Foreign investment capital was treated as a threat to national sovereignty and an attempt by sinister foreign bankers to enslave the region economically.

"We were under constant pressure from African states to abandon our new market economy in favour of socialism," Sir Masire recalls. "We avoided the debate."

In liberating the economy and formulating new mining policies, they dangled a billion-carat carrot, and cash-flush, professional diamond miners such as De Beers, could not resist taking a bite. Less than 10 years later, Botswana was able to jettison the South African rand as its currency and introduce the pula as it rapidly built up its financial reserves.

When he stepped down in March this year, Ketumile Masire's Botswana had been transformed. With more than 30 years of sustained growth that has taken reserves to around R22bn, Botswana is today one of Africa's richest countries, and a success story like no other.

The 1980s were probably Botswana's most difficult period, Sir Masire recounts.

He became President at the turn of the decade at a time when southern Africa was in turmoil. The Rhodesian bush war was at an end, but Robert Mugabe's ZANU forces were pitted against Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU for control of Zimbabwe's Matabeleland and hundreds of thousands of refugees streamed over the northern border into Botswana. South Africa was battling ANC and PAC guerillas to the east and Sam Nujoma's fighters in Namibia and Angola to the west. Throughout Ketumile Masire managed to maintain Botswana as an island of sanity and security, a fact that did not escape international investors - and the money rolled in.

"We were Africa's only liberal party in government," he says, "the only party not tied to 'isms'."

In 1984, Masire's presidency was confirmed in multiparty elections and a priority emerged to lessen Botswana's economic dependency on mining by broadening its manufacturing base. Sir Masire's government introduced a capital grant scheme in which needed enterprises were identified and investors stimulated through a generous five-year wage subsidy.

One of the first takers was the South Korean motor giant, Hyundai, which quickly recognised the value of subsidised manufacture in the proximity of the wealthy, car-hungry South African market. Even better was the lack of duties in SACU, of which Botswana and South Africa are members. The Asian car maker set up an assembly plant in Gaborone, Botswana's capital, and soon quality cars flooded into South Africa, undercutting the price of local models and throwing the fiercely protective market into chaos.

Angry cross-border rhetoric flowed and South Africa's new Finance Minister, Trevor Manuel, read Botswana the riot act. Sir Masire was unfazed. "They were dead against the Hyundai factory," he recalls. "They were saying nothing should happen on the periphery. Manuel didn't like it when we said that in South Africa, the tail was wagging the dog."

But that's all water under the bridge now and differences have been settled

Although Botswana is approaching the status of Africa's 'Asian Tiger' Sir Masire leaves some unfinished business which he hopes will be taken up by his successor, Festus Mogae. Among his goals are 12 years of education for every child and a university graduate in each family. He wants to see 'smart partnerships' between the bureaucracy, politicians, labour and the private sector and a sustained growth rate of 8%.

After 32 years in government, 18 of them as President, Sir Ketumile Masire can at last nail a sign to his door: 'Gone Fishing.'