The Co-ordinator of the Economic and Social Development Research Project at JCTR, Mr Muweme Muweme opened his presentation during the Jubilee-Zambia Media Day Meeting using a quote by Mahatma Gandhi

One of the objects of a newspaper is to understand the popular feeling and give expression to it; another is to arouse among the people certain desirable sentiments; the third is fearlessly to expose popular defects

From this quote, Mr. Muweme concluded that “if we certainly adopt deeply and widely the above expression from Mahatma Gandhi; we can move to greater heights.”

On 18^th May 2002, the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Mr. Emmanuel Kasonde announced that the Consultative Group (CG) meeting will be held from 7^th to 10^th July 2002.  Following this announcement Jubilee-Zambia organized a meeting with the media on 21^st May 2002 to share some key expectations on the coming meeting.

The CG meeting is a yearly event where the national Government of Zambia and the donor community meet to discuss the development of Zambia.  Issues covered range from finance, policies, strategies to governance and politics.  The last CG was held in Lusaka in July 2000.  For this year’s CG, the Zambian Government intends to table the following issues:  balance of payment support, macro-economic fundamentals, Konkola Copper Mines, the National Transitional Development Plan and a specific governance concern, corruption.

Twenty representatives from both broadcast and print media organizations attended the Jubilee-Zambia Media Day meeting.  The meeting opened with 3 brief presentations from

Charity Musamba – Co-ordinator:  Jubilee-Zambia

1. Zambia is facing three major problems – Debt, poverty and lack of finance

2. Responses to these challenges should be serious and sustainable

3. In dealing with these problems, 4 issues are necessary

Total debt cancellation – a prerequisite for development

Committed and Responsible National Leadership – spearhead the fight against debt and sustainable human and economic development

Citizenry – highly spirited to participate in national development

Co-operating – whose assistance and co-operation is based on true commitment for national development.

Jack Jones Zulu – Policy Analyst Jubilee-Zambia

Jubilee-Zambia is skeptical about the World Bank and IMF economic growth projections on Zambia because – limited and poor prices for Zambia export products, poverty levels, debt situation, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, low saving and lack of investment.

The HIPC initiative assumptions do not take into consideration the link between the export projections and the GDP.

Total debt cancellation, more grants and investment are the solutions to Zambia’s economic and social problems.

The current Debt Relief Initiative is too limited, slow and is not dealing with the real debt stock.

Government should be financially disciplined for Zambia to enjoy a stable financial environment.  The pains of excessive and necessary expenditures are mostly felt by the poor through high interest rates and failing economic opportunities that are supposed to give rise to industry, manufacturing and agriculture – sources of employment and productivity.

Muweme Muweme – Co-ordinator:  Economic and Social Development Research Project

Some fundamental Human Development issues – health, education and decent standard of living.

In following the Human Development Index, the position of Zambia is very low and has remained static – Out of 163 countries, Zambia is at 143.

Income – JCTR Basic Needs Basket shows that people’s incomes are continuously falling below the amount needed for the requirement of a decent of life.

The message to for the CG – Need to move beyond mere rhetoric to address these issues, through exposing the trends in living conditions of the people and attacking policy frameworks that lead to the poor getting worse off in all dimensions of human development.

Questions and comments from the media representatives

At the moment, there is a lot of construction going on especially on the main roads of the capital city, Lusaka.  What is Government doing about the dilapidated state of infrastructure including roads, in the shanty townships?  Can the CG look the issue of appropriate funding?

As JCTR and Jubilee-Zambia, do we keep track of Government loan repayments – the actual amounts and to which creditor.  The concern here is that there is so much publicity when Government is receiving money from creditors (signing is usually publicity) but very little is known about repayment.

Jubilee-Zambia should be sensitive in language and tone in its campaign for debt cancellation.  Many times Jubilee-Zambia is quoted as blaming the ordinary citizens in the West.  The debt relief Zambia is receiving is coming from the taxpayers in these countries – who are also poor – “it is the poor who give and not the rich.”  So let us focus on the “Governments” and the innocent public in the West.

Such meetings are a good strategy for sharing information.  It gives us (media) a chance to learn and get a better understanding of issues.  This will ultimately enable us to disseminate proper information to the public.  Please continue.

Is JCTR and specifically Jubilee-Zambia looking at Aid that comes with technical support.  Zambia is reportedly receiving so much Aid but most of it comes with a technical component, which swallows a great part of the Aid.  We have ended up solving other countries’ employment problems.

What are we doing about the people who have stolen public funds?  Media has written what it can about these scandals and that is how far it can go.  What is the role of Government and civil society after that?

In the last CG meeting of 2000, Government became civil society “good friend” because civil society organized itself very well to campaign for debt relief.  But after receiving this relief, Government has closed its doors to civil society.  So what is civil society’s strategy for this years’ CG to ensure Government does not repeat this behaviour?

The best way out of Zambia’s debt and poverty problems is to ensure that Zambia campaigns for more grants without conditions and also design a proper investment strategy.  Borrowing every year will never assist us in any way.