Professor Fred Morton, Transboundary Scholarship, Development of Electricity and the Knowledge Economy in Botswana, 1957-2016

Abstract

Focusing on production of electricity in Botswana, this paper is a quest for interdisciplinary research
approaches on social history based on contributions of Professor Fred Morton to the historiography of
Botswana and Southern Africa. Professor Morton demonstrated interdisciplinarity as unavoidable when
attempting to understand how the past is linked to the contemporary social history of Botswana. Before
1957 the development of electricity supply in Botswana was driven by technical information from Lesotho
and South Africa. Officials based within Botswana put pressure on their seniors in Mahikeng (colonial
Botswana’s administrative headquarters located in South Africa), to develop electricity within Botswana
and increase supply. Mahikeng ignored this demand through a series of advisory technical and controversial
consultancies produced by experts from Lesotho, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Technical information
was solicited on a regular basis from 1963 when it was decided to transfer the territorial headquarters for
a future independent Botswana to Gaborone. Along the development in and around Gaborone, there was
increased private capital investment and demand for electricity as a barometer of the pace of development
in the country. This laid a foundation for a strong partnership between private and public capital. Between
1979 and 1985 plans were developed so that Botswana would depend on local skills in the energy
production. The Botswana Energy Master Plan, which was launched in 1985 and revised in 1996 has
remained the main framework for subsequent efforts to increase electricity supply and diversify sources of
energy between 2016 and 2030.