Botswana National Archives and Records Services -Gaborone - Botswana

The Botswana National Archives was established in 1967 as portfolio responsibility of the Ministry of Home Affairs. From that time the Archives operated on Administrative instructions issued by the Ministry until 1978 when Parliament enacted the Archives legislation which formally established the National Archives of Botswana for the preservation of public Archives.

The 1985 organisation and methods review of the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs led to a revolutionary development in Botswana’s Records Management establishment. the Permanent Secretary to the president Circular No.4 of 1993 established BNARS as a department and gave it the mandate to provide a Records Management service to Government. BNARS is now under the Ministry of Youth,Sport and Culture established in 2007. The mandate of BNARS involves managing all public records throughout their life cycle from creation to disposition. This is achieved through Records Management and Archives Administration functions.

The Records Management division of BNARS coordinates records management functions through Records management Units (RMU) and Records centres by ensuirng systematic storage and timely retrieval of information as and when needed for any government business activity. Valuable records are transferred to archives repositories for permanent preservation while ephemeral records are destroyed.