Don’t want to belittle the achievement but they launched it as in „had it launched by the commercial launch provider SpaceX“, not on a self-developed rocket as it sounds like on the first read.
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Edit (rather than reply and make the comment chain long): It's fine that you read it that way. I figure that if the article were about a launch vehicle then it would have been the rocket's name in the title, and if the article were about the satellite then it would have the satellite's name (BOTSAT-1). If Botswana had developed both an orbital launch vehicle and their first satellite then I'd bet the headline would have been sensational.
It’s more a case of does it make economic or strategic sense to do so. For most countries it wouldn’t.
It is not our only space venture. Our universities are churning out aerospace engineers. It annoys STEM academics that the space industries keeps "poaching" the best grad students.
To the best of my knowledge, the company is not a strategic priority for New Zealand, we do not absolutely need to launch our own satellites. It is purely a commercial venture. They had no choice but to make it a joint effort.
If it was not a joint effort they would have far fewer customers and a extremely limited supply chain.
Quite a while ago when I met an MP who seemed interested in space. I asked if anything could be done to keep/inceltivize future space ventures fully on-shore. They shrugged their shoulders and said no.
Just remember that the best place the EU came up with is in south America. Places like mainland Netherlands probably qualify for the worst places to launch orbital rockets from.