Country profilesZambia

Humanitarian profile

Zambia has followed a familiar African pattern – independence, followed by one-party rule, followed since the 1990s by a democratic system that has been challenged by official corruption. It has largely enjoyed peace. Attempts to wean the economy off a dependence on copper have not progressed far. A crash in the mineral’s price in the 1970s savaged economic progress, but prices in the new millennium have been high.

HIV/AIDS is a huge problem, and over the last two decades Zambia has suffered severe droughts and floods that have each disrupted the lives of more than a million people. The country also hosts some 60,000 refugees who have fled years of intermittent fighting in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo as well as another 40,000 from Angola’s earlier war. Per capita it is one of the biggest recipients of official development assistance in Africa.

Country snapshot

Zambia was the world’s third-biggest copper producer in the 1960s but a collapse in world copper prices in 1975 brought devastating effects to its economy.  It is now one of the world’s poorest countries and , for most people, living standards have fallen since independence from Britain in 1964.  Copper still accounts for most of Zambia’s earnings and demand by electronics manufacturers and investment in mines has grown.

The southern African country ceased to be a one-party state in 1991 and introduced a multi-party system. But further democratic progress has been impeded by corruption and an autocratic style of political leadership.

Landlocked and thinly populated by more than 70 ethnics groups, Zambia boasts some of African’s most spectacular scenery, including the Victoria Falls on the Zambezi river.

Government

The president, the head of state and the head of the government, are elected by popular vote for a five-year term. The single chamber legislature, the National Assembly, has 158 members who serve five-year terms; 150 are elected by popular vote and 8 are appointed by the president. Cabinet members are appointed by the president from among National Assembly members.

Economy

Agriculture accounts for about 20 percent of GDP and employs about 80 percent of the workforce, mostly in subsistence farming. The main cash crops are cotton, sugar, maize and cut flowers. Industry accounts for just over 30 percent of  GDP and employs some 6 percent of the workforce, mainly in the mining sector.

Zambia is the world’s seventh largest producer of copper and a significant producer of nickel and cobalt. Copper production, which accounts for 70 percent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings, declined from 700,000 tonnes in the early 1970s to 226,000 tonnes in 2000 due to poor management of the state-owned mines, declining world prices and a lack of investment. Since then, privatisation and higher world prices have taken production back to over 700,000 tonnes. The gemstone industry produces 20 percent of the world’s emeralds.

Tourism is an increasingly important sector and accounts for about 18 percent of GDP. Helped by a $6 billion World Bank/International Monetary Fund debt forgiveness package in 2005 and investment from China, economic growth rose to about 6 percent in 2005-2008, before slowing in 2008 and 2009 due to the global recession. Economic growth is insufficient to improve living standards due to  population growth of 2.5 percent a year and the impact of AIDS/HIV, which affects over 14 percent of the adult population.  

History

Portuguese explorers and traders are thought to have first reached what is now present day Zambia in the 18th century, followed by David Livingstone in 1855. In 1888 Cecil Rhodes obtained mineral rights from local chiefs and what later became Northern and Southern Rhodesia, now Zambia and Zimbabwe, came under British control. Northern Rhodesia became the independent as the Republic of Zambia in 1964 and Kenneth Kaunda, the leader of the United National Independence Party (UNIP) became its first president.

A new constitution in 1973 established UNIP as the only legal party and Kaunda as the only candidate in that year’s presidential elections. Growing opposition to UNIP’s monopoly of power led to the formation of the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD. It won landslide victories in presidential and parliamentary elections in 1991; Frederick Chiluba, its presidential candidate, beat Kaunda with 81 percent of the vote.

But its commitment to political reform faded by the end of Chiluba’s first term in 1996. Opposition within the MMD and in the country as a whole forced Chiluba to abandon attempts to change the constitution so he could run for a third term in 2001. Levy Mwanawasa won the presidency for the MMD, which also won a parliamentary majority, in elections widely seen as flawed.

The 2006 elections, however, in which Mwanawasa retained the presidency, were said to be the freest and fairest since 1991. Mwanawasa died from a stroke in 2008 and was succeeded by his vice-president, Rupiah Banda, after elections that year.

Legal snapshot

The legal system is based on English common law. The courts are able to act independently of the government and have made rulings against it. But the upper level of the judiciary has traditionally been enmeshed in corruption, says the Business Anti-Corruption Portal, while the lower levels are also extremely prone to it.

Analysts say it is not uncommon for government officials to use their influence to avoid legal proceedings. A former Chief Justice reportedly received $168,000 from former President Frederick Chiluba over a three year period.

In 2007 Chiluba was found guilty by a British court of stealing $46 million of public money. In 2009 he was found not guilty of embezzlement in a Zambian court. The head of the anti-corruption task force appealed the ruling but was dismissed. In 2009 the Swedish and Dutch governments suspended aid to the health sector after it emerged that millions of dollars had been embezzled from the health ministry.