John W. Bruce, Mark S. Freudenberger and Tidiane Ngaido (1995):
Old Wine in New Bottles:

2.3 Conclusions

The case of coordinating customary tenure and "western" tenure forms in Botswana has seen mixed success. While the operation of Land Boards have more or less successfully replaced the authority of local Chiefs in a democratic manner, the land tenure reform policy, the TGLP, has not been as successful. Instead of abandoning the entire project, the Government of Botswana has learned from the shortcomings of the project and modified the TGLP to a large extent. It remains to be seen how successful this will be.

However, the process of privatization of lands, regardless of the TGLP, would have occurred in the communal/tribal lands of Botswana. The TGLP only granted de jure rights to de facto occupations of lands by individuals. The TGLP in this sense, was necessary to legislate and oversee this process of impromptu privatization, rather than letting it proceed in a random manner. The existence of the TGLP governs the process of privatization, and has the potential to address any injustices that can result in land occupations.

Both the Land Boards and the TGLP can be potentially replicated elsewhere, especially in the case of Namibia’s communal lands. Namibia has similar ecological factors as Botswana, and faces similar problems regarding land use. However, Botswana has been able to finance its land reform projects and Land Boards through its highly successful mining sector. Other countries such as Namibia, unfortunately, do not have a similar economy.