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Introduction
Zambia got independence in 1964 and is a landlocked country sharing borders with 8 countries namely Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Demoncratic Republic of Congo and Tanzania. The Country covers an inland area of 752,612 square kilometers. About 58% of Zambia’s total land area of 39million hectres is classified as having medium to high potential for agricultural production but less than half of the potential arable land is cultivated. The country is prone to droughts due to erractic rainfall, as its abundant water resources remain largely untapped.
The population is about 10.3million Central Statistic Office (CSO). About 63 percent of the population is rural and the rest being 35 percent is urban. The countries average population density is 13 percent.
In 1991, Zambia adopted an open private sector led economy with minimal government control. The Zambian economy is based largely on Copper and Cobalt mining. Copper accounts for 80% of the Country’s export earnings. Due to unfavourable copper prices since 1975, this has affected many sectors of the economy.
The poor performance of the Zambian economy adversely affects the key social sectors namely health and education. These sectors have depended heavily on Government funding. About 70 percent of the people are living in poverty and food insecurity is 80 percent caused by a number of factors such as unemployment, lack of credit especially for income generating enterprises
such as agriculture production, small-medium scale entrepreneurship, etc. The HIV/AID pandemic continues to ravage the Zambian Society. HIV/AIDS prevalence rate is at 16 percent for the population aged is 15 to 49 years old by 2000. Generally social-economic conditions of the majority of the people had deteriorated so much that the Government and its co-operating
partners decided to put together a Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) in 2001. Zambia has recently (2005) qualified for Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, a facility designed to provide poor countries with a ‘robust exit’ from debt overhang.
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