Policy & institutions · Botswana
Botswana: Government Effectiveness - Governance estimate (approx. -2.5 to +2.5)
Yearly data from 1996 to 2025, from the World Bank.
Policy & institutions · Botswana
Yearly data from 1996 to 2025, from the World Bank.
Botswana's government Effectiveness - Governance estimate (approx. -2.5 to +2.5) was 0.43 in 2025, the latest year in the World Bank's World Development Indicators. That is down 34.73% from 0.67 in 2015 (4.18% a year on average, compounded).
| Value | Year | |
|---|---|---|
| Latest | 0.43 | 2025 |
| Five years earlier | 0.39 | 2020 |
| Ten years earlier | 0.67 | 2015 |
| Highest | 0.67 | 2015 |
| Lowest | 0.17 | 2000 |
| Average since 2016 | 0.49 | 2016–2025 |
| First recorded | 0.17 | 1996 |
Over five years it is up 11.14% from 0.39 in 2020 (2.14% a year on average, compounded). Since 1996 it is up 148.41% from 0.17 in 1996 (3.19% a year on average, compounded). The World Bank has no value for 3 of the years in between; the chart leaves those gaps open rather than joining across them.
In 2025, Botswana's government Effectiveness - Governance estimate (approx. -2.5 to +2.5) fell 15.7% on 2024 (from 0.51 to 0.43).
Across the 22 yearly changes before that (2003 to 2024), the average change was +2.9% and a typical year strayed about 20.1% from that (the standard deviation). This year's change was 0.9 standard deviations below that average, so it was an ordinary year: it sits within the range of normal year-to-year movement.
On record, the biggest yearly rise was 49.4% in 2007 and the biggest yearly fall was 36.7% in 2006. The numbers show how large and when, not why; for the cause, look at what happened in that country in those years.
From 2016 to 2025 there is no clear straight-line trend: a straight line explains 12% of the movement over 10 observed years, so the value is moving around more than it is heading anywhere.
Worked out from the yearly values above. How the checks work: standard deviation, z-scores and straight-line trends.
In 2025, Botswana had the 69th highest value of the 205 economies reporting that year. Higher is not always better: for some indicators the lowest value is the one to aim for. See the full ranking.
Government Effectiveness (GE) captures perceptions of the quality of public services, the civil service, policy formulation and implementation, and the credibility of a government’s decisions. Governance estimate from the aggregation model, in units of a standard normal distribution, i.e. ranging from approximately -2.5 to 2.5. Larger values correspond to better governance. The (country-series-time) metadata include the (a) number of sources, and (b) standard error. The number of sources indicates the number of underlying data sources on which the governance estimate is based. The standard error indicates the precision of the governance estimate. Larger values indicate less precise estimates. A 90% confidence interval for the governance estimate is given by the estimate +/- 1.64 times the standard error.
Limitations: The WGI are perception-based measures which draw on 35 distinct underlying data sources, namely expert assessments and household/firm surveys. Data sources based on expert assessments have both strengths and limitations relative to surveys. A key strength is that they are well suited to cross-country comparison, since their methodologies are explicitly designed for this purpose. Expert assessments can also provide more detailed technical judgments on specific public institutions or governance functions that typical household or firm survey respondents may not be well placed to assess.
Regional and income-group figures are computed by the World Bank as a indicators, from the underlying data sources, are aggregated using the unobserved components model (ucm). the ucm is essentially a weighted average, resulting in a governance estimate at the country level. the following provides a detailed description of the aggregation methodology: https://www.worldbank.org/content/dam/sites/govindicators/doc/the%20worldwide%20governance%20indicators%202025%.
| Year | Government Effectiveness - Governance estimate (approx. -2.5 to +2.5) |
|---|---|
| 2025 | 0.4343 |
| 2024 | 0.5149 |
| 2023 | 0.5542 |
| 2022 | 0.4582 |
| 2021 | 0.4364 |
| 2020 | 0.3907 |
| 2019 | 0.5016 |
| 2018 | 0.4448 |
| 2017 | 0.5164 |
| 2016 | 0.6285 |
| 2015 | 0.6654 |
| 2014 | 0.6189 |
| 2013 | 0.6172 |
| 2012 | 0.6043 |
| 2011 | 0.6186 |
| 2010 | 0.6101 |
| 2009 | 0.6612 |
| 2008 | 0.6295 |
| 2007 | 0.5423 |
| 2006 | 0.3629 |
| 2005 | 0.5729 |
| 2004 | 0.4961 |
| 2003 | 0.5954 |
| 2002 | 0.4084 |
| 2001 | no data |
| 2000 | 0.1689 |
| 1999 | no data |
| 1998 | 0.1693 |
| 1997 | no data |
| 1996 | 0.1748 |
Every indicator for Botswana is on the Botswana data page.
World Bank, World Development Indicators, indicator GOV_WGI_GE_EST, licensed CC BY 4.0. Original source: The Worldwide Governance Indicators: Revised Methodology for Measuring Governance Using Perception Data., World Bank Group (WBG), uri: https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/worldwide-governance-indicators, note: Detailed documentation of the WGI, interactive tools for exploring the data, and full… Figures are fetched from the World Bank API and refreshed monthly; see the series on data.worldbank.org. The full definition and method are in the World Bank's metadata glossary. Comparisons use the same World Bank release.
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