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Festus Mogae
He told the UN his nation faced extinction, then spent the diamond money on keeping it alive.
The rise
Born on 21 August 1939 in Serowe, he read economics at Oxford and Sussex, served Botswana at the IMF in Washington, governed the Bank of Botswana from 1980 and was Quett Masire's finance minister and vice-president. He took the presidency on 1 April 1998 with adult HIV prevalence approaching forty percent.
What they did
In June 2001 he told the UN General Assembly his country was threatened with extinction, then made Botswana the first African state to offer free antiretroviral therapy to every citizen who needed it, and paid for it out of diamond revenue. By 2007 more than ninety percent of those needing treatment had it; AIDS deaths fell 39 percent and new infections in children 73 percent.
The full picture
His government moved Basarwa (San) families out of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve from 2002 and cut off their water; in December 2006 the High Court ruled the exclusion unlawful and unconstitutional. He had publicly called the San 'Stone Age creatures', asking how one could survive in the age of computers.
Why it matters
Next door, Mbeki's denialism cost lives while Mogae tested, bought the drugs and spent the diamond money on them. It is the sharpest natural experiment in African political leadership of the last thirty years.
“We are threatened with extinction. People are dying in chillingly high numbers. It is a crisis of the first magnitude.”
What citizens said
Afrobarometer Round 9 (2021–2023) — Botswana
% who say 'trust somewhat' or 'trust a lot' · Afrobarometer Dispatch No. 891