Botswana has built the roads. Now it must teach its young people to drive.
That, in essence, is the verdict of a landmark new study that places the country 45th out of 56 Commonwealth nations for youth artificial-intelligence readiness – a middling ranking that conceals a striking contradiction at the heart of the nation’s digital ambitions.
The Ayre Index, launched on Tuesday at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Antigua and Barbuda, scores Botswana 38.9 out of 100 against a readiness benchmark of 53. Only fifteen of the Commonwealth’s 56 member states clear that bar. Botswana, for all its fibre-optic aspirations, is not among them.
Yet the same research holds out a substantial prize. Applying scenarios developed by the International Monetary Fund to Botswana’s economy, the study calculates that artificial intelligence could enlarge the country’s GDP by 289 million United States dollars after ten years under a moderate scenario – rising to 438 million United States dollars if the nation moves with conviction, and tapering to 139 million United States dollars should it dawdle.
For a country of roughly 740,000 people aged 15 to 29, the message is both an invitation and a warning.
A tale of two scores
The paradox is best understood through Botswana’s own index profile. The country earns a respectable 7.2 out of 10 for meaningful access to technology – evidence of genuine progress in connecting citizens to the digital world. But it manages a mere 2.9 for decent work, enterprise and transitions.
The gap is the story. Botswana, in other words, has succeeded in laying the infrastructure of the digital age without yet converting that infrastructure into paycheques, businesses and stable livelihoods.
The consequences are stark. The market data examined by researchers record unemployment among 39.6 per cent of young people in the labour force, with many of those out of work searching for more than a year. High levels of informal and temporary employment compound the insecurity, denying a generation the foothold that stable work provides.
Table 1 Botswana at a glance in the Ayre Index
| Measure | Botswana |
| Youth AI readiness score (of 100) | 38.9 |
| Readiness benchmark | 53 |
| Ranking among 56 Commonwealth nations | 45th |
| Meaningful access to technology (of 10) | 7.2 |
| Decent work, enterprise and transitions (of 10) | 2.9 |
| Youth unemployment in the labour force | 39.6% |
| Youth who had installed software | 19.4% |
| Youth who had written a computer program | 3.8% |
| Projected GDP gain after 10 years (moderate) | 289 million USD |
| Projected GDP gain after 10 years (optimistic) | 438 million USD |
Skills that stop at the surface
The study also exposes a shallowness in practical digital competence that should trouble policymakers. Only 19.4 per cent of young respondents reported having installed software – a task that for many of their peers abroad is a routine rite of passage. Fewer still, just 3.8 per cent, said they had written a computer program.
These are not statistics about curiosity. They are statistics about instruction. The findings point squarely to the need for stronger technical education, deeper digital-skills training and clearer pathways from the classroom into employment and entrepreneurship.
Calvin Ayre, the Antiguan-Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist whose think tank produced the research, framed the moment as one of choice rather than fate.
“I’ve spent my life in businesses where new technology changes everything, and I know you can’t stand still. AI is going to change how we work, how we do business and how wealth is created. But this is not a race that only the biggest or richest countries can win. What matters is giving young people the skills and the chance to get ahead – whether to start businesses, find jobs or build something for themselves.”
Ayre was candid about the complacency he believes the Index is designed to puncture. “Some Commonwealth countries are ahead, others have catching up to do. Nobody can afford to be complacent. That’s why we created this Index. It shows countries where they stand, what they’re getting right and where they need to do better. Governments now have to decide what they’re going to do about it.”
The elephant in the data
There is a further, subtler finding – one that speaks to how confidently any nation can chart its AI future. Researchers found usable figures for only 63 of the 102 indicators that feed into the Index. On a separate Data Gap Index, Botswana scores 53.8 out of 100, signalling substantial missing evidence.
In plain terms, Botswana does not fully know its own story. It cannot say with precision how its young people are using AI, whether those tools are helping them build skills, start ventures or find work. Without that knowledge, governments, educators and development partners are left to invest on instinct rather than evidence.
The study’s authors argue that closing this information chasm is itself a precondition for progress – that a country cannot target its resources wisely until it understands where the barriers truly lie.
Five pillars for the road ahead
The Ayre Think Tank’s White Paper sets out five priorities for nations seeking to convert AI from a distant promise into a lived reality:
- Affordable and reliable access to technology
- Education that develops practical skills
- Stronger routes from training into employment and enterprise
- AI tools suited to local languages and needs
- Safeguards that allow young people to question automated decisions
The final point carries particular weight. Professor C. Justin Robinson, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Campus Principal of the University of the West Indies, Five Islands Campus, warned that access alone is not enough.
“We need to make sure that the next generation will be able to do more than just consume AI products made elsewhere. Access must come with its own agency and a real equitable stake in how these systems are governed. Young people need to be equipped to question these new tools, to improve them and to be supported in building alternatives suited to their own needs. Whether that happens will depend on choices made now. This index gives us a clearer view of where those choices are most urgent. We should use it.”
A Commonwealth snapshot
The Index, the inaugural White Paper of the Ayre Think Tank, draws on 1,128 research sources, including official statistics, international databases, surveys and published studies. It weighs the conditions affecting approximately 732 million young people across all 56 Commonwealth countries, organised around eight pillars, 39 sub-pillars and 111 indicators.
The rankings are led by Singapore (77.6), Malta (75.0) and Australia (71.0), with the United Kingdom and Canada completing the top five. At the other end of the table sit Malawi (26.3), Lesotho (27.8) and Tuvalu (31.6). Botswana’s regional peers offer a mixed picture: South Africa ranks 13th, Namibia 36th, Zambia 20th and Mozambique 44th — a single place above Botswana.
The benchmark of 53 was set after six statistical methods were used to examine the distribution of scores; five of the six methods’ uncertainty ranges include that figure. It is, the authors are careful to stress, a comparative research measure — not an IMF threshold, and no guarantee of economic reward.
What the Numbers Do – and Don’t – Say
The think tank is notably scrupulous about the limits of its own projections. The GDP figures describe possible effects on the level of GDP after ten years, not annual increases or accumulated gains over a decade. They are not country-specific forecasts, nor do they calculate how much of the total would flow to young people.
The economic illustrations apply the IMF’s low and high ten-year GDP-level effects for broad economic groups to World Bank national GDP figures for 2025. The moderate scenario is the midpoint, calculated by the researchers. The estimates concern whole economies – a sober framing that keeps the headline figures honest.
Nor does the Index test the AI competence of every young person. It measures the conditions associated with readiness, drawing on sources that span different years and age groups, with some indicators using permitted estimates. The Data Gap Index records missing evidence without reducing readiness scores.
The choice before Botswana
For Botswana, the study arrives at a crossroads. The nation has demonstrated that it can build the pipes through which the digital economy flows. What it has yet to demonstrate is the capacity to turn those pipes into pipelines of opportunity.
The 289-million-dollar figure is, in the end, a hypothesis dressed in arithmetic. Whether it becomes a modest dividend or a transformative windfall – or is never realised at all – will depend less on bandwidth than on classrooms, curricula and the willingness to give young people not merely access to the future, but a hand in shaping it.
As Ayre put it, no country can afford to be complacent. Botswana’s own numbers suggest it can afford it least of all.
