But very few Batswana earn their living from diamonds. Most, like their fathers and grandfathers, earn their daily bread through farming. One of the major problems facing the Botswana government is how to use that diamond wealth to make life better for most Batswana.
A simple solution would be modest monthly cheques. The government resisted that temptation. The only result would have been a nation of layabouts. We only have to look at some of the oil-rich states in the Arabian peninsular, where the hard work is done by foreigners while the natives live off their royalties, to see how destructive that approach would be.
Instead, year after year, Botswana has been building infrastructure. Highways have been cut across the desert. Water and electricity have been brought to towns and villages. Mines have been opened and one of the best investment climates in Africa created for industrialists.
A huge tourism industry has arisen, thanks to the money spent on airports and the sort of services hotels need.
Agriculture has not been forgotten. Botswana is probably the largest exporter of beef on the continent thanks to the modern abattoirs, services and the like that have done so much to commercialise the traditional pastoral economy.
Those modern highways do more than bring tourists. They allow Batswana cattle farmers to get their beasts to market at far less cost and in far better condition.
The occasional visitor driving along these roads will notice, on each trip, a few more decent modern houses in the villages, some better shops and other signs of growing prosperity.
But the gains have been less spectacular than in other areas and arable agriculture has definitely lagged.
So now a more positive intervention is planned, starting with irrigation and building up a diary industry. Both make sense and will allow the average cattle farmer to diversify and add value to his operations.
In other words he will get more cash from his labour.
And for Botswana, this sort of development is vital. The day will come, not this year or next but in the foreseeable future, when the last diamond is mined. By that stage Botswana must have a modern diversified economy, able to stand on its own feet without the royalties and export earnings from diamonds.
This is possible.
South Africa before the 1870s was one of the poorest British colonies. In fact after the Suez Canal was opened no one in London really wanted the territory. Diamonds changed that. For a while diamonds totally dominated South African exports, then other minerals came in and then industrial products.
Today diamonds are a useful addition to South African wealth, but if the mines closed tomorrow the economy would survive quite easily.
Botswana is in a race against time, but appears to be winning. If the productivity of the farming majority can be accelerated now in a special effort, then as the last diamond mine closes all Batswana will be prosperous enough from their own activity to cope without trouble.
