A PARTICULAR CASE

      When you speak about poverty in a country like Zambia, it is very helpful to talk in particulars, to take up specific instances.  A recent visit to one of the poorest provinces in Zambia provides just such an opportunity.  For the vast array of general statistics of Zambian poverty begin taking on some human faces when you look at the specifics revealed in the Northern Province.

      With 20% of Zambia’s land mass, the Northern Province is territorially the biggest of the nine provinces of the country. According to the 2000 Population Census, it also has the third largest population share of 13.7% (lagging behind only the Copperbelt and Lusaka Provinces whose population shares are 16.1% and 13.9% respectively). 

      The incidence of poverty in Zambia based on a money-metric poverty datum line (quantitative measurement simply in money terms, not qualitative measurement in terms of standards of living, etc.) was estimated to be 73% in 1998. However, the incidence of poverty in the Northern Province was much higher -- 81%.  This is the second highest figure, overtaken only by that for Western Province (89%). The high incidence of poverty in Northern Province is in tandem with the unsatisfactory state of social infrastructure and performance on social indicators. 

      The Living Conditions Monitoring Survey of 1998 provides us with information on the state of social infrastructure and performance in the Northern Province as well as in each of its twelve districts. Table 1 shows how the Northern Province fared vis-ŕ-vis the other provinces in the country and Table 2 provides information for the twelve districts of the province.

Table 1: Social infrastructure and performance in Zambia’s provinces, 1998

Indicator %	Northern	Central	Cop’belt	Eastern	Luapula	Lusaka	NWstern	Southern	Western
population with no education	30.7	22.1	20.0	41.9	28.8	21.3	35.5	26.3	33.3
population with no access to safe water	74.6	39.1	22.5	55.1	77.5	6.5	63.0	34.3	63.0
population with no access to sanitation facilities	2.3	10.7	1.3	39.0	2.7	3.1	5.1	43.8	72.0
adult population with HIV	13.5	17.9	24.9	16.5	16.1	27.6	11.6	15.2	18.8
children who are stunted	59.1	52.4	49.5	57.2	61.6	47.7	49.6	47.8	57.0
Average distance to primary school (km)	4.8	4.9	2.9	2.3	2.3	2.0	3.3	4.2	10.1
Average distance to health centre (km)	14.3	15.6	3.5	6.8	9.7	2.8	9.2	8.2	21.4

  Source: Living Conditions in Zambia 1998

      Table 1 brings out a couple of paradoxical situations in respect of Northern Province. The province with a plenitude of perennial rivers has one of the highest percentages of population with no access to safe water. The province that is deemed to have the potential to become the country’s food basket has one of the highest incidences of stunting among children.

Table 2: Social infrastructure and performance in the districts of Northern Province, 1998

Indicator  %	Chilubi	Chin sali	Isoka	Kaputa	Kasama	Luwingu	Mbala	Mpika	Mporokoso	Mpulu ngu	Mun gwi	Nakonde
population with no education	46.4	21.7	33.1	30.8	26.9	31.2	39.9	25.8	27.0	25.2	32.8	38.4
population with no access to safe water	97	87	74	87	43	78	77	76	78	77	77	80
population with no access to sanitation facilities	5	0	4	6	3	0	1	0	1	2	8	2
adult population with HIV	12.5	12.9	13.3	12.8	14.8	12.8	13.2	13.2	13.8	13.2	14.8	13.3
children who are stunted	62	47	67	55	53	75	62	55	59	79	50	63
Avrage distanc to primary school (km)	1	4	2	4	2	5	4	14	2	6	2	7
Avrage distanc to health centre (km)	4	6	10	28	13	17	18	24	6	22	3	21

Source: Living Conditions in Zambia 1998

      Both Tables 1 and 2 reflect the impact of centrality on geographic equity in respect of access to social infrastructure as well as social performance. In Table 1, one notices that as one moves away from Lusaka and other main line-of-rail provinces such as the Copperbelt and Southern, the social situation, with the exception of HIV prevalence, deteriorates.  The Northern and Western Provinces in particular contrast conspicuously with Lusaka.  Similarly, Table 2 shows that districts that are further from the provincial capital of Kasama such as Chilubi and Mbala also tend to fare worse in respect of several indicators.

Educational issues

      One could extend this pattern, of course, to the intra-district situation as well. Villages that are farther flung from the district headquarters would also tend to fare worse especially on account of the absence of feeder roads and transport facilities.  Thus, for example, while the average distance to a primary school is 4.8 kilometers for the Province as a whole, in many remote villages, the average distance is 8 kilometers or more. And trekking 8 kilometers over rough undulating surfaces “in the bush” is a more arduous exercise than covering a much longer distance on reasonable roads closer to town. 

      The problem of social infrastructure extends beyond simply accessing facilities. In education, for instance, the most glaring problem is that of quality. In the first place, not all children of basic school going age go to school and of those who go, not all complete middle basic (i.e., Grade 7 or primary level) or basic (Grade 9) levels.

      The greater cause of concern, however, is that the acquisition of the expected skills by those who complete Grades 7 and 9 leaves much to be desired. The functional literacy levels and numerate abilities of these basic school graduates are greatly disappointing. One can come across many children in various parts of Northern Province who have completed Grade 7 but whose linguistic skills rarely extend beyond exchanging preliminary courtesies and greetings in English. As for their quantitative skills, it may be no exaggeration to say that they may correspond at best to what is expected at Grade 2 or 3 level.

      There are some obvious reasons for the above situation in education.  The most significant of these is the paucity of teachers. As of December 2001, of a total estimated requirement of 4892 teachers, only 3859 teachers were available, leaving a shortfall of 1033 teachers. These statistics have not been updated for some of the districts: Kasama, Mbala, Nakonde and Mungwi, and so the exact shortfall could be somewhat different, with actual shortfall being higher.  The distribution of the teacher shortfall, however, is not even among the districts with the result that the number of schools run by a single or no teacher shows great variation among districts. This is reflected in Table 3.

                Table 3: Number of primary schools run by a single or no teacher in Northern Province, 2000

District	Number of schools	Schools run by a single teacher	Schools run by no teacher
Chilubi	41	8	-
Chinsali	90	29	-
Isoka	69	18	1
Kaputa	47	25	2
Kasama	40	8	-
Luwingu	57	20	-
Mbala	71	25	-
Mpika	70	18	1
Mporokoso	42	8	-
Mpulungu	31	18	4
Mungwi	58	15	3
Nakonde	43	7	-
Province Total	659	199	11

                Source: Ministry of Education, Northern Province

      Table 3 is self-explanatory and quite disturbing.  Nearly a third of the schools in the Northern Province are run by a single teacher or none.

      Further, even when teachers are on the roll, they may not be physically present in the classrooms for a variety of reasons. They may be sick (due to malaria, HIV and other opportunistic infections), at times over prolonged periods. With already weak constitutions, they become weaker still on account of having to teach too many classes. They are of course entitled to payment of excess teaching allowance, but this is frequently not paid, making teachers reluctant to engage multi-grade classes. 

      Teachers may be away in Kasama to collect their salaries. This could take as much as a week every month given the poor means of transport and communications and given that salaries may not have been disbursed on time to the Province from the parent ministry in Lusaka. In the latter case, the teachers may have to spend a few days in Kasama waiting for the salaries.  Teachers may also be busy in their own fields especially during the cultivation season and could even hire some of the pupils as labor for a measly payment in kind. The children too are willing to work in exchange for books, pens, and other such school materials.

      Where teachers are not employed by the Government or there is a serious shortfall, local communities try to hire some teachers. These may be retired teachers who are paid in the form of food. At times, the headman takes responsibility to hire a teacher and have him paid by collecting crops of beans, etc., from the parents of the pupils who are taught by the teacher. But often, because of bad harvest or lack of any produce to spare, parents are not able to make their contributions. The teacher thus remains unpaid for several months and this tends to diminish his enthusiasm to continue teaching.

      When the situation is desperate, communities even employ basic school graduates to teach lower grades on similar terms of payment. While such efforts are commendable in that they are indicative of the store the communities set by education, they cannot make for satisfactory classroom instruction.

      One important reason for the paucity of teachers is the shortage of housing for the teachers. Where a resettlement area or a remote village community has only two or three houses built for teachers, one can recruit only as many teachers. However, there are also instances of problems the other way round. According to the head master of one middle basic school in Shiwangandu, the teacher houses are there but no teachers as the latter are reluctant to move to rural areas.

Another important reason for teacher shortfall is the high mortality rate among teachers. In 2001, the death of 17 female and 36 male teachers was verified by the Provincial Education Ministry. The total recorded attrition rate of teachers due to deaths was 69 as at December 2001. But all such figures are likely to be underestimates.  On an average, each year, nearly a hundred teachers die of various diseases, most of them presumably of AIDS.  (It is of course difficult to know how many teachers die of AIDS since the reason for death is almost never recorded explicitly as AIDS.)

      Apart from paucity of teachers, there is also a paucity of books and instructional material. Books are not always available for all subjects and when they are available, they may not be of recent edition and may not be enough to cater to all the pupils. The result is that the limited supply of books has to be shared among a large number of pupils. While the ideal pupil-book ratio should not exceed two, often a book is shared among six pupils or more.

      The poor quality of education in itself could be an adequate disincentive for parents to send their children to school. But cultural values also contribute to the failure of parents to send especially their girl children to school. Girls are often married off at an early age. In fact, an unwholesome circular relationship exists between education and cultural norms. While prevailing cultural norms prevent the promotion of education, the failure to promote education, especially in the rural areas of Northern Province, in turn impedes the discarding of retrogressive traditional values that disadvantage the females. In some fishing communities, even boys are pulled out of school or are unable to attend school in order to go fishing for long periods.

      According to the Provincial Planning Officer, lack of education also makes it difficult to sell family planning concepts to reduce the population growth rate in the province, which at 4.3% is the highest among all provinces.

But despite the formidable impediments to schooling and to the maintenance of education quality, there are still some parents even in the remote villages who recognize education as the key instrument for their children to break out of the poverty trap. We thus have some instances of parents who send their children to secondary (post-basic) schools. As these schools are very far off, the child has to stay away from parents. But boarding facilities are beyond the capacity of most parents to finance. The child is therefore made to stay in a rented place in a compound close to the school. The parents then carry maize meal and vegetables grown in their fields to the child regularly so that he can do his own cooking.  Obviously, only male children are likely to be sent to secondary schools on such conditions.

WATER POVERTY

      As has already been stated, water poverty is one of the major dimensions of overall poverty in the Northern Province. As is evident from Table 2, all districts in the province, with the exception of Kasama, suffer from conspicuous deprivation of safe water for well over three fourths of its populations.

      The problem of lack of access to water exists not only for consumption purposes but also as input into farming. The scanty irrigation facilities that exist as a result of the failure to harness in any significant way the abundant water from the numerous rivers and streams in the province have made agriculture greatly vulnerable to rainfall.

      Northern Province has seldom suffered from serious droughts like some of the other provinces of Zambia. Nevertheless, the fear of a drought or of the rains not coming on time or arriving too late or raining too much (which can be disastrous for crops in the low-lying areas) hangs perpetually like a sword of Damocles over the heads of the farming communities.

      Discussion with farming households in different parts of the province almost invariably led to their identification of lack of water both for consumption and production purposes as the number one problem rivaled only by the lack of feeder roads or of fertilizer.  It was the opinion of many individuals who were interviewed that if only water supply could be assured, it could greatly alleviate their poverty situation. Bore holes would cut down on time especially of women and children that is spent in fetching water from great distances.  Canals and furrows would not only assure them of certainty of yields from planted crops, it would also help them produce outputs all the year round instead of only one season in a year.  Maize in particular could be planted twice a year.

      The relative prosperity of the households in Ngulula village on the outskirts of Kasama could be mainly attributed to the existence of canal irrigation since the early nineteen fifties. The canal has been well-maintained over the years and the water is clean. Ngulula village bears testimony to what other areas could achieve if only they had access to water.

      Northern Province undoubtedly has a distinct potential for irrigation given its endowment of perennial rivers. Although over five hundred furrows already exist, they meet only a fraction of the total demand. Access to water and fertilizer could produce a conglomerate impact on the living conditions of the farming households in terms of improved outputs and incomes, improved food security and nutrition and a reversal in the current rising trend in chitemene (clearing by cutting and burning) practices.

HEALTH SITUATION

      Access to safe water and sanitation facilities also produces a synergetic impact on the health situation. In districts such as Kaputa, Mpulungu and Mbala.  Here Irish Aid has supported water projects and school sanitation.  There has been a notable decline in the incidence of cholera and diarrhoeal diseases.  Northern Province, however, is witness to a high incidence of major diseases: malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.  Table 4 provides data on the incidence and deaths for the past three years.