"This building is a representation of our country," she said in the heart of the country's elegant embassy in Canberra.

"It's a representation of our culture. It's a representation of our aspirations, so throughout this building we've had to make sure that everything about Botswana is taken care of."

Botswana is a long-standing democracy in southern Africa. It became independent of Britain in 1966 and has had peaceful changes of power after elections ever since.

It's in the Commonwealth so technically it's embassy is a High Commission.

Whatever you call the building, the High Commissioner likes the feel of it.

The warm colours remind her of home.

"If you look at the colour palette in here, you'll find that you have all the colours that are synonymous with Botswana: the colours of our sunset; we have the browns; we have the yellow which is light.

"We have the blue which is the rain. We have the green - the greenery which you find in the delta in the northern part of Botswana."

The two-storey modern building reflects the way the country functions. There is a big meeting room which Ms Makgato says mirrors the meeting halls which are an essential part of political and social life back home.

The national symbol is the zebra. It's on the country's coat of arms and the animal's stripes appear everywhere in the embassy, from the walls to the railings on the stairs.

"It really feels like home because everything that you know about Botswana, or you see or you feel or you smell about Botswana, is here.

"But it's also about selling Botswana to the rest of Australia. This is Botswana in Australia," the High Commissioner said.

The architectural firm which designed the building was Guida Moseley Brown, based in Canberra.

Its architect on the project, Will Gardner, said there was a process of fact-finding and consultation to get the right blend between projecting the country's character and making the building function well.

The danger to be avoided with embassy design is the creation of kitsch - cheap symbolism. The embassies of the Netherlands around the world, for example, don't resemble windmills; British embassies don't incorporate a red bus.

So the task is to represent the country without being clichéd.

"That's really challenging," Will Gardner said. "We often find that we see a culture differently from the way they see themselves."

He did a lot of research about the culture of Botswana and really liked a type of ornate and beautiful basket which is woven there, so he used the pattern in the building.

"Blending these things together in a way that's sophisticated - that's the challenge."

Not only do the designers of embassies have to avoid clichés but they have to navigate the politics of that country - not just the high politics but the cultural politics - one bureaucrat might like traditional architecture and another might want to project a much more modern image, with a funky building.

Sometimes, a strong-willed ambassador with strong views gets his or her way - but there's to-ing and fro-ing between Canberra and the capital city on the way.

Dealing with clients demands tact. "Being Canberrans, we are good at dealing with politics," Mr Gardner said.

"We are good at being diplomatic."

There are lots of beautiful embassies in Canberra. It's one of the delights of the city - even if the best bits are hidden from outsiders.

The architect Iain "Max" Maxwell who founded the Canberra-based firm "supermanoeuvre" which designs buildings all over the world particularly likes the embassies of Finland, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Ireland and New Zealand but puts top of his list the unofficial "embassy" of Aboriginal people, the Tent Embassy because "embassies hold significant representational power and oblige us to reflect and respect the stories and cultures of others".

The National Capital Authority which allocates land and broadly sets the rules for embassy design encourages countries to reflect themselves in their buildings.

And lots of the embassies in Canberra do reflect their countries.

The Canadian embassy, for example, has a lot of Canadian wood inside which the diplomats say makes it feel Canadian.

To look at it, the Irish embassy might remind you of a farm in the country.

The Finnish embassy facade is acres of glass and rough wood, a mixture of the modern and the forest - just like Finland.

So what about Australian embassies abroad? What image are we trying to convey when we build embassies?

There is no discernible style, according to Mr Maxwell.

"Can you tell an Australian embassy? I don't think you can," he said.

The problem is that embassies operate in very different conditions. The embassy in Indonesia needs to be bomb-proof because it replaces the previous embassy which was wrecked by a car bomb in 2004.

Mr Maxwell says that Australian embassies have a basic function: trade. The cultural element is an add-on. "If you're lucky, there's a cultural component."

"What does Australia do? We are trying to find markets for our resources, championing tourism and attracting international investment and students."

He says the basic design of an embassy is like the layers of an onion.

There are three layers. The outer one is where local people are allowed to get visas and such like. Then comes an inner layer of offices where diplomats engaged in trade-promotion work.

And then there is the inner-sanctum of the highest security for the ambassador and the military attaché.

Some embassies have an inner sanctum within the inner sanctum - a room which is utterly sound-proof and which is protected from all electronic eaves-dropping.

He says American embassies have a fourth, outer layer: "the Marines".

There's a contradiction to embassies. They are very public in a sense - showcases - but also very secret.

They have to be. Australian intelligence installed bugging equipment when the Chinese embassy in Canberra was being built.

Mr Maxwell said that architects have been known to put false names on rooms in embassy designs so nobody quite knows which is the ambassador's office.

But whatever goes on inside, outwardly embassies are statements. In the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States vied to have the grandest building in the most dominant spot.

In Canberra, the American embassy towers on a hill, looking down at tourists peering through the bars. The Chinese embassy is also huge and in a very Chinese style, as though to say: you can't ignore us.

So what image of Australia are the architects of its embassies around the world trying to project? What do they want the world to think of us?

It has to be said that it can be hard to discern because of the high-blown language of architecture. Some architects are very big on "concepts" and less on clarity.

And the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade blocked a conversation with Bates Smart, the Melbourne firm which won the competition to design the Australian embassy in Washington.

But the company has described its thinking in the architectural trade press. The architects said their "sensitive design embodies the spirit of Australia through direct references to the distinctive Australian landscape: its bright and clear natural light and open skies, its warm materiality and its vast scale".

But it has to be said that looking at the design it's hard to see anything particularly Australian beyond: there's a lot of glass and so a lot of light and it's big - just like Australia.

The design for the new Australian embassy in Jakarta is even more obscure.

It's basically 12 big cubes which are not over-endowed with windows - no Australian light there.

The architects of the new building, Denton Corker Marshall, said their creation "offers a multiplicity of expressions, drawing together into a unified and cohesive whole to represent the cultural diversity of Australia".

A sceptic might say this translates as: the blocks have different colours.

"This building's form consists of 12 interconnected rectilinear volumes. Together, they create a solid mass intended to evoke well-known Australian landforms such as Uluru - also known as Ayers Rock - and Kata Tjuta."

The reference is not obvious to the uninitiated.

The architects may be saying as much: "It doesn't look superficially 'Australia' but relies on a more subtle reading of the Australian character."

But the Jakarta embassy is a prime illustration of the dilemma facing architects. Australia's embassy needs to be big and impressive. It needs to project some weight.

But it also needs to be safe - the previous embassy there was bombed.

And therein lies the conflict. Projecting Australia might merit light and open-ness but protecting diplomats might merit fewer windows.

The glass in the Jakarta embassy was designed by a New Zealand company, Glasshape.

"In situations where security is a primary consideration, the tension between maximising space and light without compromising security is amplified," Richard Duckworth, the company's manager, said.

Embassy design also depends on climate. One size does not fit all.

"The Australian embassy in Jakarta is a prime example. Jakarta is tropical and humid almost the whole year round, a climate that brings specific challenges when designing a building that required high levels of security."

The company produced panes of glass which are 60 millimetres thick (about the the width of a credit card) and weighing up to a thousand kilos per window.

The result - despite what the architects say - might not project any particularly Australian character - but the Australians inside are safer.