A cotton field just harvested
LUSAKA (December 2012) – Private sector-led initiatives are helping cotton farmers in Zambia to rapidly multiply production and work their way out of poverty.
“I have built about eight houses on my farm, I have bought a tractor and I am sending my children to some of the best schools in the country. I am comfortable,” brags Forbes Gwilize, a Zambian farmer whose fortunes have been turned around by growing cotton. Read full story…
Commercial businesses are displacing rural farmers in Zambia
By Nebert Mulenga
LUSAKA (November 2012) – While the opening up of vast commercial businesses in Zambia could be a positive development in creating jobs and growing the economy, it is now threatening the country’s food security situation by displacing the people who feed the nation.
“They (investors) came with guns and threatened to shoot anyone who resisted moving out. They burnt all our household properties without any notice. They burnt my food barns, clothes, blankets, bedding, television set – they even burnt my fields,” recounts Pretorious Nkhata, a Copperbelt-based farmer who was displaced from his farmland in 2008 and has since then regressed into deeper poverty. Read full story…
These people have been left homeless after their houses were demolished and all of them have since been spending nights inside this house
LUSAKA (October 2012) – The mass demolition of houses deemed illegal is leaving people stranded and exerting further stress on the already desperate housing shortage in Zambia.
“They drove the grader right into our house, and brought down part of it. I have lost goods, food. I am now stranded with my children. We have nowhere to sleep, nowhere to go. They have killed us alive,” mourns Emmeldah Mutale, 35, a Lusaka widow whose 75 million Kwacha two-bedroom house was rased on October 3, 2012. Read full story…
Agriculture has a much more promising future in Zambia than mining
By Nebert Mulenga
MUMBWA (October 2012) – The Zambian government has made the agricultural sector one of the pillars of economic growth and now ordinary people in rural areas are beginning to see a promising future in the sector as a major source of employment.
“It is better to work on the farm; you also learn how to do your own farming,” says Justine Kanguya, 20, a resident of Mumbwa district, some 150 km west of the capital Lusaka. Read full story…
The cost of food has significantly risen over the past few months
By Nebert Mulenga
LUSAKA (September 2012) – The introduction of a new minimum wage law has pushed the cost of living upwards in Zambia as thousands of producers and service providers continue to transfer the cost of paying new salaries onto the consumers.
“Everything at the market is now very expensive, and it is like they are being increased every day,” complains Mwamba Kasonde, a housewife in the capital Lusaka. Read full story…
Zambian maids are optimistically looking forward to their new salaries
By Nebert Mulenga
LUSAKA (July 2012) – The new government-imposed and non-negotiable minimum wage scales have seen domestic and general workers’ salaries leap-frog mine workers’ pay packets in some cases and Zambian maids have responded by dreaming big.
“This is like a prayer answered for me,” shouts the jubilant Priscilla Mwemba, a domestic worker, who among other things now plans to rent a house for her mother from the proceeds of her new pay. Read full story…
A woman politician, Mirriam Kauseni, meeting community leaders during her campaigns
By Nebert Mulenga
MANSA (May 2011) – Zambia has one of Southern Africa’s worst records of women participation in politics with only 22 women out of the current 150 parliamentarians and 91 women occupying local government seats of the over 3,000 councillors countrywide. But that scenario may soon change with more women now stepping forward to fight for elective positions ahead of the forthcoming general election.
“I am working very hard, I am campaigning, I am on the ground to ensure the party adopts me, to ensure I win the election after I am adopted,” says Mirriam Kauseni, who is seeking to become her own town’s first female MP. Read full story…
Boys and girls are sharing these grass-thatched huts as 'couples' at day high schools in Luapula Province...
By Nebert Mulenga
MANSA (May 2011) – Pupils at day high schools in Zambia’s Luapula province are renting their own houses and pairing themselves as couples, resulting in high teenage pregnancies and contraction of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV and AIDS.
“We were staying the three of us [girls], then we started sharing the house with three guys and that is how we paired ourselves [as married couples],” says 17-year-old Dorcas, who left school after she fell pregnant early 2011. Read full story…
Little to show for infrastructure... Namilenge clinic situated along the highway to Lusaka in Kaoma town of Western Province
By Nebert Mulenga
MONGU (May 2011) – The recent man-burning riots in Zambia’s northern Luapula Provincial capital, Mansa, have stirred public demand for the need to recount the confusions of Western Province’s Mongu town at the beginning of this year, when the Westerners pressed for the region’s independence citing unbearable poverty levels.
“The tensions in Western Province are a consequence of the neglect that the place has suffered in terms of socio-economic and infrastructure development,” Thomas Mabwe, head of Development Studies at the Zambia Open University, commented. Read full story…
Mining manganese is making the poor poorer in northern Zambia
“Us who are poor are losing our land because of these mines. They
(investors) are chasing us from our own land,” says Peter Mwila, a resident
of Mansa town in Luapula Province, northern Zambia. Read full story…
Zambian News In Depth 