The Oxford Handbook of the Zambian Economy

This handbook offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of the Zambian economy, including past and current trends. The Zambian economy has evolved from simple and fragmented agrarian activities at the turn of the 20th Century into a wide range of organized and regulated modern economic activities today. While the economy has largely revolved around the mining industry since the early 1920s when the extraction of copper and other mineral ores on the Copperbelt begun, there has been a gradual broadening of economic activities over time, with services now accounting for almost two-thirds of gross domestic product (GDP).

This book shows that since colonial times, one of the persistent items on the economic development agenda in what is today known as Zambia has been the need to diversify the economy to reduce dependence on mining, in terms of foreign exchange earnings and public revenue. While the need to diversify the economy has been well-acknowledged by successive Zambia governments, including the current government, achieving this goal has proved to be elusive so far. By presenting a collection of well-researched and empirically supported chapters on the key areas of the Zambian economy, this volume gives readers a good sense of where the Zambian economy has come from, where it is at the moment, but also highlights the challenges and prospects for economic growth.

Horman Chitonge, Professor of African Studies, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town, Caleb Fundanga, Chairman of Boards, Standard Chartered Bank Zambia Plc, Mundia Kabinga, Senior Lecturer, University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, Vera Songwe, Under-Secretary-General, United Nations

Horman Chitonge is Professor of African Studies at the Centre for African Studies, and research associate at PRISM, School of Economics, University of Cape Town. He is also a Visiting professor at African Studies Centre, Tokyo University of Foreign and in the Global Justice Programme, Yale University.

Caleb Fundanga is Chairman of Boards of Standard Chartered Bank Zambia Plc and the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA), Chancellor of the University of Lusaka, and President of the Institute for Finance and Economics (IFE) Zambia.

Mundia Kabinga is a Senior Lecturer in Development Finance & Strategy at the University of Cape Town. He also serves as a Partner in Nephadi & Associates, a Johannesburg-based boutique growth, risk and strategy advisory firm, and a Senior Research Fellow with Research ICT Africa, a telecommunications policy think tank

Vera Songwe is the United Nations Under-Secretary-General, serving as Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Africa’s premier thought leadership institution focused on generating knowledge and applying policy research to accelerated economic diversification and structural transformation.