Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. It is home to approximately 20.8 people and ranks among the nations with the highest poverty and inequality rates globally.

Despite improvements in recent years, economic growth in the country is unable to support the high rate of population growth and the burden of HIV-related issues. Here are the top facts about poverty in Zambia:

1. In Zambia, 60% of the population experienced poverty in 2022, according to the World Bank. This is caused by limited job creation, poor governance, corruption and poor management of resources.
2. More than 70% of the total population lives on less than $1 a day by the year 2000. Due to high food prices coupled with extreme poverty, families spend 64% of this income on basic food needs.
3. The impact of poverty on children’s development is evident. In 2018, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that 35% of children aged less than 5 in Zambia were stunted and 9% were underweight, weighing less than 2.5kg. These conditions are attributed to malnutrition, which is one of the consequences of poverty.
4. Lack of access to nutritious food also poses a problem for adults. High consumption of unhealthy diets, including an over-reliance on maize, has led to the problem of obesity, particularly for young women.
5. Poverty is worst in rural Zambia, where 78.8% of people lived below the poverty line in 2022.
6. Disparities between rural and urban areas are also considerable. About 90% of urban Zambians have access to safe water, compared to 53% of their rural counterparts. Similarly, urban areas have more access to sanitation, at 70%, compared to 25% in rural regions.
7. Even in urban Zambia, approximately 70% of urban dwellers live in slums. In response, Habitat for Humanity, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), has implemented several programs to eradicate housing poverty in Zambia. One of these initiatives is the construction of houses for the most vulnerable groups in the nation.
8. Zambia’s population is rapidly growing at 2.8% per year. With a large younger population entering reproductive age, even more stress is expected to be placed on demand for jobs, health care and other services.
9. World Vision, a nonprofit organization, has been working in Zambia for more than 30 years. The organization has drilled more than 4,400 boreholes in 28 districts across the nation to provide everyone, including the most impoverished groups, with access to safe water. More than one million Zambians benefit from these boreholes.
10. The World Bank is supporting Zambia’s government in achieving its development goals. Together, they have launched the Country Partnership Framework (CPF), which aims to create jobs and opportunities for the country’s rural poor.

While the burdens of disease and geographical restraints have made it difficult for Zambia to pull itself out of poverty, improvements in both qualities of life and the economy will hopefully lead to shrinking poverty in Zambia in the coming years.

– Alexi Worley

Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Updated: June 01, 2024