The argument Botswana Railways carried into the Sandton Convention Centre last month was, at its heart, a plea to redraw the map in the mind.
For a country whose economy has long been described by what it lacks – a coastline, a port of its own, a direct lane to the sea – the pitch delivered at the Southern African Railway Association (SARA) Conference was an insistence that geography is a matter of interpretation. Landlocked, the delegation suggested across four days of panels and closed-door sessions, is a condition. Land-linked is a choice.
The conference, held from 20 to 23 October 2026 under the theme “Reimagining Rail: Unlocking Investment and Industrialisation, Growth and Connectivity Across Africa,” also marked thirty years since SARA was formed to represent the common business interests of the region’s railways. It was, in other words, an anniversary convened to interrogate whether three decades of institutional goodwill had produced tracks that actually carry goods.
‘Rail is not the destination’
The Honourable Minister Keaogile Atamelang framed the stakes in the broadest terms, arguing that the continent’s industrial ambitions rest on steel laid in the ground.
Africa’s industrialisation, he said, cannot be achieved without efficient, reliable and interconnected railway systems. Rail investment, he added, must move beyond individual national projects toward integrated economic corridors that connect mines, farms, industries and communities to regional and international markets. He reaffirmed Botswana’s commitment to strategic infrastructure investment, railway reform, private-sector participation and stronger regional partnerships.
Mr. Chris Hughes, the Botswana Railways Board Chairperson, carried the message into the Railway Operator Board Chairpersons’ panel on advancing rail performance across SARA networks – and promptly complicated it.
Rail, Mr. Hughes told the panel, is not the destination. “The success of one railway increasingly depends on the success of its neighbours and partners. Regional collaboration is not optional; it is essential.”
He argued that Botswana is well placed to strengthen regional connectivity because of its central location in Southern Africa, its political stability and its commitment to safety and good governance. Mr. Hughes identified three enablers of turning strategy into results: strategic alignment, disciplined execution and stakeholder trust. He reaffirmed the organisation’s commitment to responsible stewardship, reliable execution and sustainable results.
Making reliability ‘commercially accountable’
The operational doctrine that emerged from the conference was, in the end, less about track and more about promises.
Botswana Railways’ position is that customers experience a rail journey as a whole, and not as a series of separate national railways. The most important intervention for growing rail’s market share, on this reading, is to make reliability commercially accountable. “The customer buys certainty.”
So said Mr. Semabale Tladi, Botswana Railways’ Director of Business Development and Operations, who called for railways to move from available capacity to executable capacity – a distinction that requires confirming locomotives, wagons, crews, fuel, infrastructure, train paths and interchange arrangements, and the readiness of the neighbouring railway, before accepting a commitment. The implication is unglamorous and consequential: connect operational planning directly to the customer promise, set measurable delivery commitments, assign responsibility, and act early when performance is at risk.
To that end, the organisation affirmed its commitment to integrated corridor planning built on a single end-to-end train plan, aligned resources and interchange arrangements, shared information with early visibility of disruptions, and common performance measures with clear accountability and agreed escalation procedures.
Botswana Railways called on the region to turn policies into reforms, projects into bankable investments and track into reliable freight services.
A yardstick for the next thirty years
Supporting those sentiments, Botswana Railways Caretaker General Manager Mr. Okitanye Gaogane sharpened the demand into a checklist. Delivering on the ambition, he said, requires transparent network access in practice, harmonised standards, corridors and dry ports designed around the customer’s single logistics journey, bankable investment, and digital systems that are bought for operating outcomes.
His closing formulation offered the conference a standard against which, presumably, future anniversaries might be judged. The measure for the next thirty years, Mr. Gaogane said, should be freight delivered, risks reduced, investment mobilised and African trade enabled – and not agreements signed.
On the dry ports panel, he said Botswana Railways sees the railway as more than a transit route, describing it instead as an opportunity to drive economic diversification and industrialisation across the region. He also took part in the CEO Think Tanks discussion on optimising SARA corridors.
Botswana Railways said it remains committed to working with the Government and its regional partners to improve the reliability of its services, grow freight volumes and support Botswana’s economic development through rail.
For a nation that has spent its post-independence decades describing itself in the language of what it is not, the subtext was plain: the fastest route to the sea may run through the neighbours’ yards – and begin, once again, with the customer.
