1 Introduction
1. Zambia has made significant economic progress
since 2000. Twelve successive years of growth have trebled
per capita income to $1,070, making Zambia a middle income country.
Growth has been built on improved economic management and increasing
foreign investment, mostly in mining. This helped urban poverty
to fall by a third from 1996-2006.[1]
2. However, as mining employs only 50,000 people
and until recently has contributed limited tax,
growth in this sector has meant little for
the rural areas where 61% of Zambians live, relying on rain-fed[2]
agriculture as their primary source of income. While Zambia has
long been relatively urbanised, it has a total population of only
13 million spread over an area three times that of the UK. Hence
delivering services and access to markets in rural areas is difficult
and expensive.[3]
3. Zambia remains one of the least-developed countries
in the world, ranking 164 out of 187 countries in the 2011 UN
Human Development Index with a third of the population unable
to meet even basic food needs. Zambia is seriously
off track on the poverty Millennium Development Goal (MDG 1)
and inequality remains very high.
Women suffer disproportionately, violence against women is widespread
and maternal mortality rates (MDG 5) are high.[4]
There are also significant challenges in meeting MDG7.[5]
4. In 2011 Zambia elected a new Patriotic Front (PF)
Government under President Michael Sata after 20 years of Government
by the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). The new Government
has taken action to reduce corruption and make constitutional
reforms, including strengthening Parliament. It has indicated
that it is keen to stimulate economic growth and investment in
infrastructure and to improve services.[6]
5. We decided to visit Zambia in March 2012 for two
main reasons. We went to examine taxation in the country and DFID's
assistance to the Government of Zambia to improve revenue collection
as part of our inquiry into taxation in developing countries,
which is the subject of a separate report.[7]
We also decided, following the election of the new Government,
to look at DFID's programme in Zambia, which will be providing
about £60 million of bilateral aid per year up to 2015. During
the visit we saw a wide range of DFID projects, met Zambians who
had benefited from them as well as Ministers, including the Vice
President, senior officials, experts and NGOs. We would like to
thank the DFID staff and others who organised our visit. Following
our visit we held an evidence session with CDC, World Vision,
and Stephen O'Brien MP, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
at DFID, and Mike Hammond, the Head of DFID's office in Zambia.
6. In the report below, we look first at the scale
of the Zambian Government's expenditure and the opportunity for
spending the money more efficiently. Then we examine DFID's programmes
and their coordination with the Government of Zambia's priorities
and other donors. We consider DFID's three main categories of
spending: human and social development, wealth creation and governance.
A feature of the DFID programme is the explicit statement that
part of DFID's role is to help Zambia graduate from aid; thus,
finally, we consider Zambia's prospects for 'graduation' from
aid. We do not attempt to undertake a comprehensive survey of
DFID's programmes in Zambia, but rather to highlight a few key
issues.
1 Ev 24-5 [DFID]; EV w8 [Mark O'Donnell] Back
2
As opposed to irrigated agriculture Back
3
Ev 25 Back
4
Ev 25 Back
5
UNDP MDG factsheet 2011 Back
6
Ev 26 Back
7
International Development Committee, Fourth Report of Session
2012-13, Tax in Developing Countries, HC 130 Back
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