This Research Study is a product of two phases of intensive fieldwork conducted over the total period of four (4) weeks. The research presented here is limited by access to data and by the duration of fieldwork. However in dealing with the issues which emerged during the field visits, we tried our best to maintain impartiality: measures include, consulting a wide range of stakeholders and reasonably thorough literature review. There is still great potential for further research on this topic in the sampled areas.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Publish What You Pay Zambia and Caritas Zambia would like to acknowledge the hard work and commitment of the key researchers Mr. Mtwalo Msoni and Mr. Edmond Kangamungazi assisted by Ms Lwizya Chanda and Mr. Sindikani Sovi for their commitment to the successful completion of this research. We would further like to thank Publish What You Pay Zambia member organizations and cooperating partners for their support and input onto the final validation of the research findings. Many thanks also go to the cooperating partners that provided financial support that made the completion and publication of this analysis paper possible more specifically the Civil Society Environment Fund and Finish Embassy, their support throughout the process was nothing less of exceptional.

Find and download the entire research report here: http://caritaszambia.org/index.php/publications/research-reports/file/124-challenges-women-children-youth-face-in-pre-post-actively-mining-areas-a-comparative-case-study-of-kabwe-chavuma-and-solwezi

STATEMENT ON NATIONAL DIALOGUE

1. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this brief Press Release presentation and we wish you all compliments of the season.

2. Since we are still in the Christmas season, on behalf of the Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ), Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ) and Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB), we avail ourselves of this opportunity to wish you and through you the nation at large a grace-filled time and God’s abundant blessings in this new year and indeed always.

3. The theme and message of Christmas is presented to us by St. Luke the Evangelist when he quotes the angel who appeared to the shepherds: “I bring you news of great joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of David a Saviour is born to you; he is Christ the Lord.” St Luke continues, “With the angel there was a great throng of the heavenly hosts praising God in the words, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven and on earth peace to those of good will’” (Luke 2:10-14). Therefore, joy and peace are the themes of Christmas.

4. The source of the Christian joy, happiness and peace is the fact that we belong to God and participate in God’s life. Therefore, we must respect and reverence each human life and each other as members of God’s household. The greatest gift we Christians can give to the world is the joy and peace proclaimed by the angels. In fact, the birth of Christ marked a definitive reconciliation between humanity and God. Therefore, we are called to live as a reconciled people.

5. In the Bible, peace means love, forgiveness, reconciliation, good will and good relationships between people. This is the good news meant for people of all races, pigmentation, religions, tribes, political affiliation and ideologies. This is the peace we wish for our nation Zambia. However, there can be no peace without justice at personal as well as at all levels of society.

6. True dialogue means a change of heart, attitude and behavior. It is a project, an on-going process and effort. It is the way of life for us Christians which should be heard in our words, seen in our faces and actions because it is in our hearts. Lack of peace hurts everyone especially the weak, the elderly, the poor, women and children. It hurts us Christians because we are essentially brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ who identifies himself with the same poor and the suffering.

7. Despite the public pronouncements that Zambia is a peaceful country, the reality on the ground is different due to many acts of injustice, a growing culture of corruption, incidences of violence and utterances out of deep-seated hatred. We therefore earnestly appeal to all our political leaders to stop insulting each other or anyone who does not agree with their political opinion and start genuinely to respect fellow political players as legitimate opponents with their constitutional right to hold their political opinion and to propagate it among the general public. It demands that all political party leaders declare and enforce zero tolerance or political violence and to bring culprits to book by handing them over to law enforcement institutions. It means that all political leaders must give the planned for ‘national dialogue’ a chance to succeed by committing themselves to dialogue without preconditions with a view to level the playing field. These leaders of political parties must restrain themselves and their members from making inflammatory or irresponsible statements.

8. We also call upon media houses to refrain from sensationalism and polarization of people or political institutions; let them not join the irresponsible people who want to be spoilers of the process and the noble objective of a successful and fruitful national dialogue.

9. Peace cannot come to our country if successful administrations do not take drastic steps to stamp out the endemic corruption among public servants which has reached epidemic proportions against the backdrop of the highest poverty index since the dawn of our political independence in 1964. It is unacceptable that some public service personnel have amassed enormous wealth in dubious or highly questionable ways and within a short time in the service. It is a scandal that year in and year out, the Auditor General’sreport reveals hair raising miss-application and miss appropriation of huge sums of public funds by public officers but few, if any culprits, are punished. For how long shall public anger be restrained given the high unemployment levels particularly among young adults. Unless most of these young adults whose number increases each year can be quickly absorbed by the labor market, we might be sitting on a latent volcano! That is why national dialogue and reconciliation is critical so that politicians and other stakeholders can address the situation and assist the current administration to grow the economy to accommodate job seekers.

10. We believe in dialogue because it is essential for holistic national developmentas there cannot be any meaningful development where there is tension and lack of effective as well as peaceful engagement among various groups in the country. It is for this reason that we support and wish to contribute and make ourselves available for the restoration of peace in the country through dialogue.

11. We are saddened by the recent outbreak of cholera in Lusaka and other parts of the country and the loss of more than 50 persons from this epidemic. Our hearts go to the many families who have lost their loved ones from the disease. We pray for God’s peace, comfort and encouragement during this time of national crisis. We pray for the various teams working on the ground to fight the cholera outbreak so that this may be overcome quickly and life may be restored to normal. We support the efforts of other stakeholders in this battle against cholera and pledge ourselves to collaborate with government in addressing the epidemic.

May God bless our nation Zambia !!

Signed and issued on 8th January 2018

Bishop Alfred Kalembo - President of CCZ

Bishop Paul E. Mususu - Chairman of EFZ

Archbishop Telesphore G. Mpundu - President of ZCCB

Signed Copy here: http://caritaszambia.org/index.php/publications/general/file/123-church-statement-on-national-dialogue-8th-january-2017

OASIS FORUM PRESS STATEMENT DATED 4TH JANUARY 2018 ON THE RESIGNATION OF HARRY KALABA AND THE NEED TO RECLAIM ZAMBIA FROM THE SCOURGE OF CORRUPTION.

A new year brings with it the promise of a new and better start in life. Over the past year, Zambia has seen an increasing and unmitigated level of corruption and abuse of public resources. Two days ago, Zambia witnessed the resignation of a senior member of the Cabinet, Harry Kalaba, for the first time over twenty years on the basis of alleged corruption and mismanagement of public resources. This was precedented by the dismissal of another top Minister of government, Lucky Mulusa, who made similar allegations. For the Oasis Forum, this signals the fact that corruption and abuse of public resources in the country has reached new alarming and deplorable levels. It is literally stealing food from the mouths of our many needy and hungry children.

The Holy Father, Pope Francis,argues that if indeed "the just ordering of society and of the state is a central responsibility of politics," the Church, "cannot and must not remain on the sidelines in the fight for justice" (Cf. EvangeliiGaudium, #183).

Since 1999, Caritas Zambia has been publishing an annual State of the Nation report aimed atanalysing the social-economic and political situation of the previous year. The State of the Nation then, was normally released every January. In this new structure of the publication, Caritas Zambia will be producing an analysis of the State of the Nation covering the period from June of the previous year, to June the following year. The analysis will cover key government decisions and policies pertaining to social - economic and political situation of the country and their impact on the livelihoods of the people, especially the poor.

This new look State of the Nation is being published at a time when Zambia has experienced numerous social-economic and political challenges that have shaken its resolve to promote and uphold the tenets of democracy. Caritas Zambia regrets to note that since 2013, there has been a heightened level of political violence resulting from political intolerance among the leaders of major political parties and their followers. The opposition political parties have been, more often than not, on the receiving end. They have been denied freedom to mobilize Zambians in order to sell their messages and on numerous occasions, they were met with police brutality. The incidences involving Dr. Nevers Mumba, the MMD leader, who was forced to meet his supporters in the bush in Eastern Province as a result of police teargasing the hall where the meeting was taking place and Mr. Hakainde Hichilema, the UPND President, whose house was raided in the middle of the night, are such cases in point. At the core of this undemocratic behavior were the Zambia Police who were clearly biased in the execution of their duties especially when dealing with violent behavior of the ruling party cadres and that of the opposition. Many times members of the opposition took complaints to the police, they ended up being arrested and accused of causing the breach of peace and being violent themselves. This created the impunity that we saw before and after the 2016 elections and somewhat continues up to the time of this analysis. What happened to the people who attacked mourners at the memorial park cemetery during the burial of a UPND supporter? What investigations have been done to find the culprits of this incident? So those who committed the heinous crime at the grave-site are laughing away with impunity, while the victims are nursing life-long wounds and scars.

Our collective failure to realize the danger that was being created by introducing cadres in the civil service has brought us to where we are today. Despite being a deeply polarized and divided nation, there are many who continue to burry their heads in the sand and pretend that all is well.

Unfortunately, the over-shadowing nature of political tension in Zambia has been affecting economic performance of the country. During the whole of 2016, the prices of commodities kept rising and the livelihoods of most people were becoming unbearable. While this was happening, social services were under pressure. Hospitals were running without essential drugs and the quality of education especially in public schools was deteriorating. Although schools and health centers were being built, the government was not employing adequate personnel to run them. These and other issues form the bulk of this analysis and we hope that our voice will be heard not only by those who govern, but also the ordinary men and women in Zambia, whose rights are indispensable.

Caritas Zambia hopes and prays that concrete steps will be taken by all key stakeholders in this nation to address the critical issues affecting our people, especially those that are poor and neglected. Indeed, time has come for us to engage in genuine dialogue aimed at reconciliation at all levels; political, economic, social, ethical and spiritual.

Fr. Cleophas Lungu

ZCCB Secretary General

The entire State of the Nation can be downloaded here: http://caritaszambia.org/index.php/publications/state-of-the-nation/file/121-the-state-of-the-nation-2016-june-2017

On the occasion of the 36th Summit of the Heads of State and Government of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC Summit), we the undersigned members of the Coalition for an Effective SADC Tribunal, are raising serious concerns over state parties insistence in denying access to justice to the citizenry of this region as per the revised SADC Tribunal Protocol. The Protocol strips the Tribunal of its jurisdiction to hear complaints from individual citizens of SADC. This is inspite of the guaranteed right for people’s participation in the SADC Declaration and Treaty under Article 23.

SADC remains an important sub-regional community though still characterized by varying atrocities and human rights violations with impunity, human and drug trafficking, violence against women and children, migration, mineral exploitation, election rigging and other concerns which the SADC Heads of State and Government committed to address in line with SADC Protocols. However therevised SADC Tribunal Protocol is in conflict with the SADC Declaration and Treaty and undermines human rights protection in the region. It further, limits citizens, civil society organizations and other non-states actors’accessto the Tribunal by only granting this access to state parties.

The SADC Tribunal was designed to be a fair impartial court where citizens could hold their governments accountable and seek redress for the violation of rights and the current Protocol threatens these important rights. Therefore we once again call on member states that have signed the revised SADC Tribunal Protocol to refrain from ratifying the revised Protocol as it violates and runs counter to the spirit and principles of the SADC Treaty, including the protection of human rights, rule of law, democracy and public participation.In addition, the revised Protocol, by removing a forum for access to justice in the region, may be responsible for aggravating human rightsviolations in the SADC region. We further call on those who have not signed to refrain from signing and to advocate for an inclusive Tribunal that will serve the needs of the people of SADC.

Signed by Members of the Coalition for an Effective SADC Tribunal:

1. Associação Justiça, Paz e Democracia,  (Angola)
2. Auwal Socio-Economic Research Institute, ( South Africa)
3. Caritas Zambia
4. Centre For Human Rights-Pretoria, (South Africa)
5. Centro de Estudos Moçambicanos e Internacionais, (Mozambique)
6. Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation (Malawi),
7. Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, (South Africa)
8. Citizen Engagement Platform Seychelles, (Seychelles)
9. CIVICUS, (South Africa)
10. Lawyers for Human Rights-Swaziland, (Swaziland)
11. Malawi Law Society, (Malawi)
12. Human Rights Institute of South Africa, (South Africa)
13. Institute For Democracy and Leadership, (Swaziland)
14. South African Litigation Centre (South Africa)
15. Southern African Christian Initiative (Namibia)
16. SADC-CNGO (Botswana)
17. Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (Zimbabwe)