Search

Begin New Search Political Geography Zambia Content Type Working Paper

1. Dark Spots in the International Commodity Value Chain: The Case of Copper in Zambia

Author:
Dale Mudenda and Léonce Ndikumana
Publication Date:
01-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:
This paper investigates mineral export misinvoicing in Zambia as a channel of capital flight, with a focus on copper, gold, and gemstones. The analysis reveals major discrepancies between Zambia’s recorded exports and imports as recorded by its trading partners. In the case of copper, a large share of exports recorded in Zambia as headed to Switzerland does not appear in Swiss imports. The ‘missing copper’ cannot be traced through analysis of trade between Switzerland and its major partners either. Gaps in the opposite direction are observed in Zambia-China trade, suggesting export underinvoicing, a common mechanism of capital flight. These do not offset the gaps observed in mirror trade statistics between Zambia and Switzerland, which remain a mystery. Similarly, whereas the primary destination recorded for Zambian gold exports is South Africa, these do not appear in gold imports recorded by South Africa. The gemstones sector is characterized by high informality that enables smuggling and export underinvoicing. Zambia must implement measures to curb misinvoicing of mineral exports and address structural opacity in the trade value chain if it hopes to maximize the gains from the exploitation of its mineral resources.
Topic:
Political Economy, Commodities, Exports, Global Value Chains, and Minerals
Political Geography:
Africa and Zambia

2. Capital Flight from Natural Resource-Dependent African Countries: Updated Estimates and Analysis for the Cases of Cameroon, Ghana, and Zambia, 1970-2021

Author:
Léonce Ndikumana
Publication Date:
08-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts Amherst
Abstract:
This paper is part of a project that investigates domestic and global drivers and enablers of capital flight from Cameroon, Ghana, and Zambia, three countries that are significantly endowed in natural resources. It presents estimates of capital flight from these three countries and discusses the key drivers of the phenomenon. The results show that as of 2021, estimated total capital flight stood at $71.1 billion for Cameroon, $50 billion for Ghana, and $71.5 billion for Zambia. External borrowing and, in the cases of Zambia and Cameroon, trade misinvoicing, are key correlates of capital flight. While external borrowing directly and indirectly drives capital flight, trade misinvoicing constitutes an important mechanism of unrecorded cross-border capital flows. This study contributes to the efforts to uncover the mechanisms and enablers of capital flight from Africa, with the aim of shedding light on possible strategies to curb further capital outflows in the context of efforts to scale up and diversify development financing to support recovery from global crises, the transition to green growth, and sustainable development in Africa.
Topic:
Development, Political Economy, Natural Resources, Capital Flight, and Trade
Political Geography:
Africa, Zambia, Ghana, and Cameroon

3. The Effects of a Private-Sector-Driven Smallholder Support Programme on Productivity, Market Participation and Food and Nutrition Security: Evidence of a Nucleus-Outgrower Scheme from Zambia

Author:
Tekalign Gutu Sakketa, Raoul Herrmann, Chewe Nkonde, Mwelwa Lukonde, and Michael Brüntrup
Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS)
Abstract:
Nucleus-outgrower schemes (NOSs) are supposed to be a particularly effective private-sector mechanism to support smallholder farmers and contribute towards mitigating the problematic aspects of pure large-scale agricultural investments. This discussion paper uses panel household survey data collected in two rounds in Zambia to analyse some agro-ecological and socio-economic impacts of the outgrower programme of one of the largest agricultural investments in Zambia: Amatheon Agri Zambia (AAZ) Limited. The descriptive results show that the type of participation in the programme varies across participants and components, with most participating in trainings. Econometric results suggest the following key findings. First, although the overall impact of the AAZ outgrower programme on the uptake of conservation agriculture practices is robust and promising, impacts on the adoption of other agricultural technologies is less obvious and the effect depends on the type of support provided. Second, the programme has had a significant impact on maize productivity promoted in the initial phase but not on the other crops – mainly oilseeds – promoted later. Third, the initially less productive farmers seem to benefit slightly more than already better performing ones. Fourth, although the impact on overall household security was insignificant, there is some suggestive evidence (although the effect is weak) that the programme has a positive effect on improving women’s uptake of micronutrients. Finally, our findings show that the three components of the programme (trainings, seed loans and output purchases) have different effects on the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices and productivity, and to some extent on food security. Overall, the results suggest that NOSs, with all their risks, can play a role in the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices, improving farm-level agricultural technologies, providing input credit, and thereby improving productivity and smallholder livelihoods. However, this is not automatically the case, as it crucially depends on the design and management of the project; the availability of good policies and institutions governing the rules of operation; the types of crops promoted; the duration of the project; and the political commitment of host countries, among others.
Topic:
Markets, Food Security, Participation, Farming, and Productivity
Political Geography:
Africa and Zambia

4. Consumption of New and Emerging Tobacco and Nicotine Products in Zambia: Implications for Policy

Author:
Shimukunki Manchishi, Edna Kabala, and Mulenga Chonzi Mulenga
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR)
Abstract:
The global economy has in recent years observed a rapid increase in the consumption of New and Emerging Tobacco and Nicotine Products (NETNPs). Consumers of the NETNPs in Zambia and elsewhere justify consumption of these products on grounds that they are less harmful and expose them to fewer health risks compared to traditional tobacco smoke. However, studies have shown that these NETNPs do not entirely filter out harmful chemicals from tobacco as presumed by many people, and in some cases may even expose smokers to more smoke over longer periods of time as is the case of water pipe (shisha). This study investigated the consumption and taxation of NETNPs in Zambia to generate knowledge and come up with evidence-based policy recommendations aimed at informing appropriate stakeholders on the consumption and taxation of NETNPs. The study employed a mixed methodology encompassing a desk review, a survey of 400 respondents and key informant interviews. In terms of the consumption of NETNPs, the study revealed that a majority of those surveyed consume water pipe, which ranked highest among the NETNPs consumed in Zambia. Other NETNPs commonly consumed include bidis, e-cigarettes and dry snuff (nsunko). The consumption of these products varied according to the economic status of the consumers, with products such as snus and e-cigarettes being much more preferred and consumed by those in employment because they can afford more costly products. Meanwhile, products such as water pipe and bidis were the products of choice among those not employed and this could also be attributed to the relatively lower cost of the products. Regarding the socio-demographic characteristics of the surveyed sample, the study established that most of the consumers of NETNPs were young, unmarried males. A notable finding in the study was that those who had attained tertiary level of education were the biggest consumers of NETNPs. With regards to taxation of NETNPs, the study has found that there is potential to increase taxes substantially based on consumers’ willingness to pay which would require very high tax levels to deter consumption. This would require the government to considerably increase excise taxes on these products which would ultimately increase their price and hence curtail their consumption. The study has established that the taxation of all tobacco products in Zambia is the sole responsibility of the ZRA which draws its mandate from various provisions of the Zambian law. Broadly there are eight categories used to classify tobacco and nicotine products based on the HS codes. This broad classification forms the basis for taxation of tobacco and nicotine products in Zambia. The study has established that there are four main taxes applied on tobacco products in Zambia, these include: a 25% customs duty levied on the value of the product imported; a VAT of 16% on the value of the product; a 5% surtax; and excise duty of 145% of the value for duty purposes (VDP) or K355 per kg for all tobacco products.
Topic:
Health, Digital Economy, Business, Tax Systems, Public Policy, Tobacco, Public Health, and Gender
Political Geography:
Africa and Zambia

5. The effectiveness of social protection in five African countries through normal times and times of crisis

Author:
Katrin Gasior, Iva V. Tasseva, and Gemma Wright
Publication Date:
12-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
We study the effectiveness of social protection benefits in reducing income and consumption poverty in five sub-Saharan African countries—Ghana, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia—in normal times and times of widespread economic crisis. Using tax–benefit microsimulation models with representative household survey data, first we estimate the coverage of benefits and their poverty-reducing effects in each country. Second, we study the ability of benefit automatic stabilizers to reduce losses in incomes and consumption in times of crisis, by simulating hypothetical reductions to earnings and employment. Although the coverage of benefits is fairly high in Ghana and Zambia, the poverty-reducing impact of benefits in all five countries is low in normal times. The effectiveness of benefits to stabilize income and consumption in times of crisis is also limited because many benefits are linked to proxies of income, not income itself, or have tight eligibility criteria. Social assistance programmes are typically unresponsive to losses in household earnings and employment and provide limited support for unemployed people.
Topic:
Poverty, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, and Income
Political Geography:
Uganda, Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, and Ghana

6. Estimating the Effect of Christian Messages on Civic Engagement: Evidence from a Community-Collaborative Study in Zambia

Author:
Elizabeth Sperber, Gwyneth McClendon, and O'Brien Kaaba
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kellogg Institute for International Studies
Abstract:
A significant literature suggests that religious conviction can drive political participation, perhaps because religious people internalize a moral obligation to act toward the common good and/or because religious conviction gives people a sense that their actions will make a difference. This paper presents findings from a community-collaborative pilot study in Zambia that examines these ideas. Zambia is an overwhelmingly Christian state experiencing dramatic democratic backsliding. Zambian churches are among the major providers of civic engagement education and programming. Together with our community partners, we randomly assigned Zambian youth (aged 18-35) volunteers into one-time civic engagement workshops. Identical basic civic educational material was presented in each workshop. Yet, we ended this curriculum with two different sets of pre-recorded Christian motivational messages: In 50% of the workshops, these messages emphasized a religious obligation to sacrifice for the common good. In the other 50%, the messages emphasized the power of faith to make change in the world. We found that the latter message (emphasizing the power of faith) moved workshop participants to be more willing to participate in peaceful protest, to disavow political violence, and to critically evaluate other people who choose not to participate in electoral politics. By contrast, the message focused on sacrifice for the common good did not affect political participation relative to baseline. We discuss how the study advances research on religion and political participation as well as knowledge about Christian civic education programs, which are prevalent but understudied throughout.
Topic:
Civil Society, Politics, Religion, Democracy, and Youth
Political Geography:
Africa and Zambia

7. Energy Poverty in Zambia

Author:
Bernard Tembo, Rabecca Hatoongo-Masenke, and Chama Bowa-Mundia
Publication Date:
09-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR)
Abstract:
Of the estimated 3.01 million households in Zambia, in 2015, only 35.8% and 16.1% utilised clean energy fuels for their lighting and cooking services respectively1 (CSO, 2016). Usage and access to clean energy is essential for economic growth, human development and more generally poverty reduction. This notwithstanding, access has remained low in many developing countries. For instance, 1.1 billion of the total global population do not have access to electricity, of which majority are found in Asia, Africa and Oceania (United Nations, 2016). Furthermore, the majority of this population is found in rural areas. Given the centrality of energy to people's everyday life, governments worldwide have devised di erent policies and mechanisms to enhance the use of clean energy. Limited access and use of clean energy is mainly thought of as an issue of a ordability (Barnes and Floor, 1996; Pachauri et al., 2004; Rosnes and Vennemo, 2012; Murtaza and Faridi, 2014; Ismail and Khembo, 2015; GRZ, 2017; Venkateswaran et al., 2018; Kyprianou et al., 2019; Oum, 2019; Yan et al., 2019). Hence, the subsidy policies being implemented in many countries. On the one hand, it has been observed that lack of access to clean energy is a sign of poverty; while on the other hand, access to clean energy helps in the alleviation of poverty (Pachauri et al., 2004; Nussbaumer et al., 2011; Okwanya and Abah, 2018). However, in some cases, access to clean energy is hampered by both the price of the energy (i.e. an a ordability issue) and by availability of infrastructure to deliver the required energy. Thus, in such situations, some governments have had to borrow to facilitate the development and expansion of energy infrastructure; on top of subsidising the use of clean energy. This notwithstanding, the lack of use of clean energy at household level is not well understood. For instance, it is thought that if a household is classi ed as income poor, then it will not be able to use electricity (Pachauri et al., 2004; Murtaza and Faridi, 2014). And in such cases, some governments opt to implement subsidy policies. While this approach has proved useful for some households, it is not an e ective approach of delivering clean energy to the people who need it the most. There is, therefore, great need to identify aspects that determine whether a household would have access to clean energy and let alone use it. This knowledge would be critical in designing policies that hope to increase utilisation of clean energy fuels. As such, this paper sought to understand energy poverty among households in Zambia. Energy poverty is a concept concerned with lack of access and use of modern energy fuels.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Poverty, Infrastructure, and Electricity
Political Geography:
Africa and Zambia

8. An Analysis of the Legal Framework for Public Debt Management in Zambia

Author:
Florence Banda-Muleya, Mbewe Kalikeka, Zambwe Shingwele, Philip Ngongo, and Shebo Nalishebo
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR)
Abstract:
Zambia’s current legal framework for public debt management is inadequate. The high level of external debt standing at US$11.2 billion and domestic debt at K80.2 billion due to fast pace of debt contraction; the resulting heightened risk of debt distress; and the weak implementation of the 2017-2019 Medium Term Debt Strategy (MTDS), raise questions on the adequacy of the laws that govern public debt management. Now more than ever, with Zambia quickly headed to its first bullet repayment on its Eurobond debt, the country needs to enhance its legal framework on Public Debt Management (PDM).
Topic:
Debt, Government, Economy, and Public Debt
Political Geography:
Africa and Zambia

9. Leveraging the BRI for Africa’s Industrialisation and Intra-Trade (Opportunities for the AfCFTA)

Author:
Mwanda Phiri and Nakubyana Mungomba
Publication Date:
12-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR)
Abstract:
Two initiatives have recently gained prominence, one on the global stage and the other in Africa: China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The former initiative’s primary aim is to build economic infrastructure in the transport, energy and telecommunications sectors in the countries through which the BRI will pass, which has come to include several African countries. Concurrently, the objective of the AfCFTA is to deepen economic integration amongst African states by creating a unified market for goods and services and in the process, propel Africa’s industrialisation and structural transformation. Although seemingly independent, these initiatives converge and present two economic diplomacy instruments that can be leveraged to address Africa’s industrialisation challenge and the bottlenecks to intra-African trade for inclusive and sustainable development. On the back of secondary data sources, this paper explores how the BRI can be leveraged to advance the objectives of the AfCFTA by addressing the financing, infrastructure and productive capacity challenges constraining Africa’s industrialisation and intra-trade
Topic:
Regional Cooperation, Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Free Trade, and Industrialization
Political Geography:
Africa and Zambia

10. A Review of Pillar I & II of Zambia’s Economic Stabilisation and Growth Programme 2017-2019

Author:
Florence Banda-Muleya, Shebo Nalishebo, Mbewe Kalikeka, Nakubyana Mungomba, Ignatius Masilokwa, and Caesar Cheelo
Publication Date:
06-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR)
Abstract:
The economic crisis of 2015 destabilised Zambia’s economic performance. The depreciation of the Kwacha and its pass-through effects led to inflation of as high as 22% and growth, at 2.9%, was far below the 5% target. The overall Budget deviation was 15% of Parliamentary appropriations in 2015, disrupting planned activities and attainment of set macroeconomic objectives. There were huge variations between what the consequent national Budgets committed to do and what they actually did. To fix this and nudge the country back towards high sustained economic growth, the Economic Stabilisation and Growth Programme (ESGP) was crafted in 2017. The five-pillar plan aimed to ensure prudent fiscal management by providing a system of accountability and a standard against which results could be measured, among other things. The aim of this paper is to review the ESGP, particularly, its performance in 2018. The paper sets out to understand how well Zambia faired in implementing the ESGP as well as to highlight the broader fiscal trends recently. It ultimately seeks to make recommendations about how Zambia can revive its path to economic stability and growth. The paper focuses tightly on the first two pillars of the ESGP, i.e. (i) restoring budget credibility; and (ii) enhancing domestic resource mobilisation and refocusing public expenditure. The remaining three pillars are slated to be reviewed in the second half of 2019.
Topic:
Budget, Finance, Economic Growth, and Economic Stability
Political Geography:
Africa and Zambia