Despite a series of supportive policies over the years, economic diversification remains an obscurity for Botswana. The economy remains heavily dependent on diamond mining, while the private sector, considered pivotal in the strategy for diversification, continues to be shallow and narrow, with weak inter sectoral diversity and production links. In addition to proliferation of fragmented, uncoordinated policies and/or strategies, which have seriously undermined implementation and monitoring (and accountability in the case of institutions), the paper identifies passive political commitment, especially with regard to supporting innovation, research and development as some of the major contributing factors to sluggish progress on economic diversification. Government"s slow rate of response towards addressing factors that inhibit private sector growth and competitiveness (including utility costs, cost of capital, access to land etc) in yester years has also compounded the problem. With renewed vigor and excitement in government in recent times, especially with regard to the "Excellence Strategy" and the "Economic Diversification Drive", it is imperative that these factors be taken on board, otherwise these latest initiatives will only perpetuate what has been the case over the years.

Article HistoryThe paper investigates the influence of insurance penetration on economic growth in Botswana for the period 1994-2013. Using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test approach to Cointegration by Pesaran et al. (2001) the study finds a negative long-run relationship between insurance penetration and economic growth. This suggests that the recent rapid expansion of the insurance sector could be hurting the economy's long-run growth. We contend that this finding could reflect a savingsubstitution effect in which insurance assets mobilized locally are invested abroad. However, the effect is economically small and statistically significant only at the 10 percent level. Furthermore, there is no evidence that insurance penetration affects growth in the short-run. Nonetheless we argue that there is a need to pay more attention to the insurance sector in financial sector policy analysis, lest it becomes a significant leakage of funds from the income-expenditure stream. Contribution/ Originality:This study contributes to the existing literature on the insurance-growth relationship. The study uses the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds test approach to Cointegration to estimate the impact of insurance penetration on the economic growth of Botswana. It is the first study to gauge the quantitative effect of insurance sector development on Botswana's economic growth.

The paper examines determinants of export decisions and export intensity by manufacturing firms in Botswana, a developing country in Sub-Saharan Africa. Manufacturing, is one of several sectors through which the government seeks to pursue the all-important diversification of the economy. Botswana's economy is heavily dependent on a diamond sector that in recent years has been declining, and is expected to decline further as diamond resources dwindle. Manufacturing is one of the sectors expected to play an important role in driving the expansion of the economic base. This paper contributes to the debate on policies to promote the growth of the sector. The paper examines factors likely to influence firms decisions to participate in global markets. Global markets provide a higher potential for firms to grow and make a meaningful impact in the economy. The paper applies Probit and Tobit models to firm level data to identify determinants of the decision to export and analyse export intensity respectively. The results of the Probit model show that firm age, firm size, human capital and access to finance increase rge likelihood of entering the export markets. On export intensity, results from the Tobit model show that firm size, human capital and firm location matter. The results suggest that economic gains can be expected from improving access and quality of education. Access to finance, and sea ports. Sector specific policies are also likely to benefit firms in textile and garments and chemicals.

This paper seeks to investigate whether M1, M2 and M3 monetary

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