RALEIGH, N.C. – What does the Republic of Botswana, a landlocked country in Southern Africa, have in common with North Carolina, an American state bordered by the Atlantic Ocean?
Initially, one may find very little in common between the two. Botswana is a sovereign nation, while North Carolina is one of 50 states in the United States of America.
Despite their differences, the two have formed a mutually beneficial union through the Department of Defense National Guard Bureau State Partnership Program, or SPP, administered by the National Guard Bureau. Since 2008, the partners have engaged in joint military education, exchanges and knowledge sharing to ensure the efficiency of their respective security architectures.
“Why am I in North Carolina talking about the economy of Botswana?” asked Mpho Churchill O. Mophuting, ambassador of Botswana to the United States, during a news conference at the Joint Force Headquarters in May during his official visit.
Inspired by the success of the military engagements, Mophuting expressed his country’s eagerness to deepen collaboration beyond military partnership to include other spheres as it seeks to diversify its economic reliance on diamonds.
“We believe we can partner with the state of North Carolina to develop Botswana to create mutual benefits for both North Carolina and Botswana,” he said.
Primarily, the SPP facilitates military-to-military engagement to advance joint security goals between state Guards and partner nations. The program has 115 partner nations, including 26 African countries. The North Carolina National Guard has partnered with four nations: Moldova, Botswana, Malawi and Zambia. Three of those nations are in Africa.
The partnership with Botswana, approaching its 20th anniversary, has security benefits. Botswana has been one of the most secure states in Africa, and the apolitical nature of its military has made it one of the most stable democracies on the continent.
Botswana hopes to study North Carolina’s tourism and agricultural heritage in its bid to diversify its economy. It also hopes to learn to improve pharmaceutical production through collaborative research with institutions in North Carolina, Mophuting said.
“We know North Carolina is renowned for tourism. We can exchange notes and see how North Carolina does things, and learn from them. We believe North Carolina could also learn from Botswana,” Mophuting said. “Also, North Carolina is very vibrant when it comes to issues of pharmaceuticals, and from the experiences of COVID-19, Botswana, having led most of Africa in vaccine development, we believe that we have the experience and the knowledge. It is important to look for partners to develop our pharmaceutical industry, and ... there is no other partner that we can do apart from North Carolina.”
“So these are the types of things that we are looking at. We are more than willing to work together with North Carolina. We would be visiting North Carolina, like we have been visiting for the past 17 years. And together we honestly believe that we can transform the economy of Botswana,” he added.
Members of the North Carolina National Guard have found the experience of deployment to be rewarding because it offers Soldiers an opportunity to build personal bonds and enduring trust.
U.S. Army Col. Mark Almond, commander of the 139th Regional Training Institute, echoed this sentiment when he spoke as a guest on the North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s Safety Scoop podcast.
“Back in 2019, I participated in a State Partnership Program event with Upward Minutemen in Botswana. We had about 400 Army and Air National Guard Soldiers there. The 440th Band was with us and supporting the Botswana Defence Force in Botswana. We completed various engineering projects, musical concerts, strategic planning, and the equipment we took there was funded by C-17. I never would be able to do that without being a member of the Guard,” Almond said.
After Hurricane Helene, the North Carolina National Guard invited its four SPP partners to participate in an emergency management symposium to review lessons learned from the disaster and share technical knowledge with leaders from the partner nations.
“We were able to bring together all four of our partners, and we were able to discuss lessons learned from Hurricane Helene. We discussed the issues affecting their countries, such as migration of large numbers of people in Moldova, lakes destroying fish and wildlife in Zambia, massive flooding in Botswana, typhoons and flooding in Malawi,” Almond said. “The ability to watch leaders from these countries as well as senior leaders from the North Carolina National Guard, North Carolina Department of Agriculture, North Carolina Department of Public Safety, discuss these shared resources and how they tackled these problems, I would not be able to experience that without being a member of the Guard.”
The North Carolina National Guard’s partnerships with Botswana and other partner nations transcend typical military alliances. They have become unions of shared growth, mutual learning and enduring personal bonds. The success of the SPP is a testament to the power of partnerships, demonstrating how different entities can forge connections that benefit citizens in tangible and enduring ways.