By Kesaobaka Pelokgale
Botswana has long celebrated the idea of community. From shared water wells to local savings groups, our collective spirit is woven into the fabric of society. Nowhere is this more visible than in our cooperatives. These institutions, often small, sometimes fragile, are a lifeline for communities where formal banks hesitate to tread. They are meant to be engines of inclusion, trust, and shared prosperity.
And yet, time and again, they falter. They collapse, disband, or quietly sputter along, leaving behind disappointed members and the faint echo of lost promise. It is tempting to dismiss these failures as unfortunate, as a simple consequence of human error. But the truth is deeper, more structural, and far more revealing about the state of finance and governance in Botswana.
Why Cooperatives Still Matter
Despite recurring failures, cooperatives endure. They are not relics; they are survival tools. In many villages and towns, they remain the only reliable channel for loans, savings, and financial participation. Banks may demand impeccable credit histories, collateral, or digital footprints, but communities demand understanding, empathy, and trust. Cooperatives bridge this gap.
For teachers, civil servants, small-scale farmers, and tourism-adjacent workers, these institutions are more than just financial mechanisms,they are lifelines. They represent the hope that collective effort, guided by shared values, can create opportunities otherwise inaccessible in Botswana’s formal economy.
The Uncomfortable Truth: Failures Are Structural
Cooperatives fail not because of bad luck, nor solely because of poor leadership. They fail because systems are weak. Across districts and sectors, patterns repeat: boards without financial literacy, AGMs that are attended in formality but not in function, loan policies written on the back of envelopes. Even when funding flows, it often strengthens the fragile structures instead of fixing them.
In short, money alone cannot save what is inherently unstable. The failures are systemic, embedded in governance, culture, and capacity. Understanding this is uncomfortable, but it is necessary. Without confronting these truths, we risk repeating the same mistakes, cycle after cycle.
Governance: The Quiet Killer
The most persistent flaw is governance. Social connections often outweigh fiduciary duty. Decisions are guided by relationships, not rules. Boards are populated with well-meaning individuals who lack training in risk management, financial reporting, or accountability. Member oversight exists in theory, not in practice.
Annual general meetings become ritual rather than recourse. Members vote, leaders are elected, and yet the books remain opaque. This is not negligence, it is the natural outcome of underdeveloped systems meeting real human ambition.
When Cooperatives Outgrow Their Discipline
The irony is that growth, which should signal strength, often magnifies weakness. Loan books expand without credit risk frameworks. Savings accumulate without proper cash planning. Systems designed for a small group buckle under the weight of success. In these moments, a cooperative is no longer a simple community tool; it becomes a mini-bank, exposed and vulnerable, without the safeguards that banks employ by default.
The lesson is clear: without discipline, expansion becomes fragility. And in Botswana, this lesson is repeated far too often.
A Pause Before Solutions
Part I ends not with answers, but with observation. The challenge of Botswana’s cooperatives is not that they lack money, ambition, or good intentions. It is that they lack the financial maturity, governance structures, and disciplined culture necessary to protect the resources they already have.
In Part II, we will explore what can be done, how cooperatives can evolve from fragile hope into resilient institutions, and how members, boards, and finance professionals can each play their part in transforming promise into reality.
Finance Corner With Pelokgale 