Stanbic Bank Botswana Chief Executive Officer Chose Modise says Botswana’s ability to attract investment, create jobs and accelerate economic growth will depend heavily on how effectively government turns policies and plans into tangible results.
Speaking at the Botswana Public Service Leadership Conference 2026, held under the theme “Year of Delivery,” Modise said the country had reached an “execution moment” as it moves from planning to implementation.
She said efficient, transparent and predictable public-sector systems can accelerate capital flows, shorten project cycles and increase the impact of national development programmes, while weak systems can prevent even well-designed policies from moving beyond intention.
Modise said the private sector and government were interdependent, arguing that financial institutions could not thrive in an economy where public institutions were ineffective. She said Stanbic viewed itself not as an observer of Botswana’s development, but as a partner in its execution.
“No government can deliver sustainably without strong financial systems, and no financial system can thrive without effective public institutions,” she said.
Drawing lessons from the banking sector, Modise challenged government institutions to adopt clearer priorities and stronger performance management. She said ministries should identify a limited number of outcomes that citizens should experience each year, establish how those outcomes will be measured and assign clear accountability for delivering them.
She argued that performance management should not be treated as an administrative or human resources exercise, but as a continuous leadership discipline involving clear expectations, regular feedback, support for capability gaps, recognition of good performance and consequences where performance falls short.
Modise also called for government to shift its focus from activities to outcomes, saying holding meetings, producing reports and processing files means little if citizens do not experience an improvement in services.
She proposed that ministries regularly monitor five citizen-centred indicators — service turnaround time, citizen satisfaction, budget execution, project completion rates and complaint resolution.
On digital transformation, Modise said government should focus less on technology itself and more on the time and uncertainty it removes for citizens. She suggested that major government services should eventually have digital tracking systems allowing citizens to see what is required, how long a process should take, where an application stands and who is responsible for it.
She further urged public-sector leaders to make greater use of data in day-to-day decision-making, including identifying delayed services, regional backlogs, rising complaints and poorly performing offices before problems become entrenched.
Modise said financial institutions could support the national delivery agenda through four key areas: financing national priorities, modernising government payments, promoting financial inclusion and sharing private-sector capabilities in areas such as project management, analytics, cybersecurity and customer experience.
She proposed a 12-month delivery compact between government and financial institutions focused on reducing turnaround times, digitising priority services, publishing service standards and performance results, strengthening financial governance, developing leadership capacity and establishing joint teams to tackle bottlenecks across government agencies.
However, Modise said the success of these interventions would ultimately depend on leadership and institutional culture.
She warned against the mindset of “this is how we have always done it”, saying Botswana could not build a future-ready public service using outdated approaches.
For Modise, improving public-sector delivery is ultimately about restoring and strengthening public trust. She said trust is built through everyday experiences — from pensions being paid on time and passports being issued as promised to roads being completed properly, clinics having medicines and complaints being resolved.
“A high-performing public sector is not merely a governance objective; it is a national growth strategy,” she said.
Modise challenged leaders to identify one service they could significantly improve within 90 days, one bottleneck they had tolerated for too long and what citizens would notice if they succeeded.
She said the test of the “Year of Delivery” should be whether citizens actually experience change, rather than the number of plans announced.
“The measure of leadership is not the number of plans we announce, but the number of lives that improve because we delivered,” Modise said.
