Caritas Zambia has been following with dismay the recent attacks directed at the LAZ and its President in her personal capacity.

That is why we totally agree with the SADC Lawyers Association that said, "The March and siege of the Bar Association's offices in broad daylight is the height of assault on the Rule of Law and independence of the legal profession in Zambia." Indeed, what transpired on the material day goes to show how low we have sunk as a country on such matters, and this worrying assault on what is remaining of our democratic tenets in Zambia needs to be halted and reversed henceforth.

By Zambia Humanitarian Actors Platform (ZHAP) 22 February, 2017, 12:30hrs

Lusaka, Zambia – The Zambia Humanitarian Actors Platform (ZHAP), a loose alliance of local Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) working in the humanitarian sector, has noted with concern the impact of heavy rains that the country is receiving particularly with regard to flash flooding in the urban areas. While the rains come as a blessing after consecutive poor rain seasons, the poor state of drainage infrastructure in our cities and towns is causing losses to home owners and small businesses especially in peri-urban areas.

The Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) is an alliance of four faith based organisations formed to help promote credible elections through non-partisan citizen monitoring. The CCMG partner organisations are: Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ); Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ); Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflections (JCTR); and Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB), formerly the Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC), through Caritas Zambia. CCMG was founded ahead of the 20th January 2015 presidential by-election. CCMG is strictly non-partisan. We support no political party or candidate.

Welcoming Remarks

I would like to welcome members of the Diplomatic community, Political parties, representatives of Civil Society, members of the press, ladies and gentlemen. Today we will focus our remarks on presenting CCMG’s 2016 Election Report, which details the findings of CCMG’s non-partisan election observation effort. We will have time for questions and all of CCMG’s reports and statements, including this statement, are available on our website and on the table.

FOREWORD

It is not a mere coincidence but a master stroke of Divine Providence and a singular outpouring of God's grace and blessings on our nation that the Policy of Catholic Bishops‟ Conference on the Protection of Children and Minors is launched during a special Jubilee Year. During this Jubilee Year we are celebrating the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the Catholic Church in Zambia.

8th Alternative Mining Indaba Concept Note 6th to the 8th of February 2017, Double Tree by Hilton, Upper Eastside Hotel, Cape Town

Introduction

The Alternative Mining Indaba (AMI) is an international platform that was formed in 2010 by civil society in their efforts to provide an alternative voice emanating from the investing in Africa Mining Indaba that has been hosted for over 20 years. The platform goes beyond profits, mergers and acquisitions with a focus on community development strategies, calling for good governance of revenues and in particular seeks to define and find ways to implement ethical policies in the extractive sector value-chain, thus creating conditions for a positive economic and social outcome, while avoiding any negative environmental and social effects.

INTRODUCTION

We, representatives of Caritas and Social Ministries of the Catholic Church in Zambia, drawn from the dioceses of Chipata, Livingstone, Mansa, Mongu, Monze, Mpika, Ndola, Solwezi, the Archdioceses of Lusaka and Kasama together with the Caritas Zambia National Office gathered at the Kasisi Retreat Centre in Lusaka for our Annual General Meeting from 3rd to 5th November 2015, reflected on God’s grace on the work of Caritas in Zambia since our last Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the same place in 2014. We have everything to thank the almighty God for. Caritas teams all over the country reported great commitment to promoting dignified lives among the people they serve. We are humbled as Caritas community to be instruments of God at the service of Charity towards his people especially the poor and weak. We shared through our various reports the witnessing of Charity among all our national and diocesan Caritas structures and we will not tire to thank God for his greatness.

In Caritas Human Development interventions, there is greater emphasis put on developing the capacity of our people to sustainably manage their livelihoods and live dignified lives as designed by our Creator. We however also noted with sadness that the efforts of ordinary people in Zambia today to earn themselves dignified livelihoods is seriously hampered and constrained by contextual situations obtaining in our country which need to be urgently resolved by the country’s leadership and policy makers.

Find the entire breifing here: http://caritaszambia.org/index.php/publications/state-of-the-nation/file/97-caritas-zambia-2015-agm-press-release-on-state-of-the-nation

Statement by the Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) at the dissemination of Phase one voter Registration Monitoring Exercise

The entire statement can be found here:

http://caritaszambia.org/index.php/publications/general/file/79-ccmg-statement-at-the-dissemination-of-phase-one-voter-registration-monitoring-exercise

By Inonge Mutukwa

Kasama Archdiocese Pastoral Coordinator, Fr. Edward Mutale has commended Caritas Norway for continued support and dedication to uplifting the living standards of the poor people in Zambia through the Zambia Country Programme for Governance and Livelihoods.

Fr. Mutale was speaking during the official opening of a five day National Steering Committee meeting for the Zambia Country Programme for Governance and Livelihoods at Moto Moto Pastoral Centre in Kasama, on Monday 18th August, 2015. He urged the National Steering Committee member organizations, who include Caritas Zambia, Caritas Kasama, Caritas Mansa and Caritas Mpika, to take advantage of the meeting to discuss the sustainability of the programme as a way of keeping alive what has been achieved thus far.

CARITAS Zambia says the public is frustrated at the government’s failure to deal with perpetrators of corruption.

On Tuesday, Namwala council secretary Mabvuto Masiye was locked out of his office by fellow council workers for allegedly misappropriating K799, 000.

Commenting on the matter, Caritas executive director Samuel Mulafulafu said it was sad that corruption reports that the media was bringing out were not being acted upon by law enforcement wings and the government was tolerating it.

“I think the public is getting frustrated with the failure by government to deal with perpetrators of corruption, and if they do, the failure to inform the public of what they have done. We have had many reports coming out on such behaviour being exposed by the media. This is just one of those corruption cases being exposed and the public want to know, so I can understand what their frustration is about,” Mulafulafu said.