[{"bbox": [85, 154, 323, 186], "category": "Section-header", "text": "2 RATIONALE"}, {"bbox": [85, 220, 234, 247], "category": "Section-header", "text": "2.1 Context"}, {"bbox": [96, 266, 1134, 452], "category": "Text", "text": "Within its Vision 2030, Zambia has set a series of ambitious goals, in various sectors of the economy and the society. By 2030, Zambia, a “stable and dynamic middle-income economy”, is a “regional centre of excellence in health and education”; Zambians have “equitable access to quality health care for all”; the population is “healthy and well nourished”, has clean and safe water supply and sanitation for all, etc. A number of successive National Development Plans have since been put in place to channel the Government’s policies and actions towards these goals. However, 17 years after the Vision was defined, and 7 years away from the target date for accomplishment, the country’s reality is telling a completely different story."}, {"bbox": [96, 478, 1134, 642], "category": "Text", "text": "Zambia is a low-income country that has faltered in its socio-economic development over the last decade⁴. It has a mixed economy consisting of mining, agriculture, and construction as major economic sectors. In 2021, Zambia's population stood at 18.9 million with an annual growth rate of 2.9%. In 2020, the life expectancy at birth was 64 years. Adolescents make up almost a quarter (24%) of the total population, with adolescents aged 10 to 14 years accounting for 13.3%, and those aged between 15 and 19 years about 11%. In 2018, nearly 49% of all adolescents (10–19 years) lived in rural areas⁵."}, {"bbox": [96, 667, 1134, 1127], "category": "Text", "text": "In this context, exacerbated by years of endemic corruption, low diversification of industrial and agricultural production and insufficient investments in the human development sectors, Zambia counts among the countries with the highest levels of poverty across the globe, with more than 61.4% of its population living below the international poverty line⁶ in 2015. It also has one of the highest levels of social inequalities worldwide, with an extreme poverty of 60% in rural areas. In 2015, Zambia's Gini coefficient stood at 57.1 indicating a huge differential in wealth distribution accounted for mainly by variances between the rural and urban areas⁷. The global gender gap index tended to increase through 2008-2021 period, though it fluctuated substantially in recent years, ending at 0.723 index in 2021⁸. The country ranked 143 of 189 in the 2019 Human Development Index, with 48% of the population unable to meet their minimum calories requirements, and more than one-third of children under five years are stunted. Zambia's score on the human capital index (HCI) in 2020 is 0.40 which indicates that a Zambian child born in 2020 will only be 40% as productive as s/he could have been if s/he had received a complete education and been in full health. The situation is exacerbated with 78% of children under five years at a high risk of not achieving their full potential, whilst 65% of children face a risk of lack of access to health, nutrition, responsive caregiving, early learning opportunities, and safe water and sanitation⁹. Additionally, in Zambia, a child who starts school at the age of four years can expect to complete an average of 8.8 years of education by the age of 18, but acquire only five years of learning¹⁰. Low human capital has a significant adverse impact on Zambia's growth potential and global competitiveness."}, {"bbox": [96, 1153, 1134, 1366], "category": "Text", "text": "The election of a new government in 2021 has brought with it renewed optimism about the nation's development goal of becoming again a thriving middle-income country. This change came also with a renewed interest in investing in Human Development, framed around a zero-corruption policy and motivated by two main factors: on the one hand, the new Government comes with a longer term vision of the country's development, based on a transformative goal related to its human resources. Hence education, health and social protection have been prioritized more than before both in terms of policy and budgeting, i.e. they were given a prominent role in the 8th National Development Plan and were subject to a substantial increase in the budget in 2022 and 2023. On the other hand, an element that helped this switch towards human development was the IMF 1.3 billion programme under"}, {"bbox": [85, 1404, 1143, 1453], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁴ World Bank reclassified Zambia to low-income status from lower-middle-income, for the 2023 financial year following the deterioration of Gross National Income per capita estimates recorded in 2021."}, {"bbox": [85, 1452, 1143, 1526], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁵ UNFPA. 2022. Adolescent and Youth Dashboard- Zambia. https://www.unfpa.org/data/adolescent-youth/ZM ; Zambia Statistics Agency, Ministry of Health (MOH) Zambia, and ICF. 2019. Zambia Demographic and Health Survey 2018. Lusaka, Zambia, and Rockville, Maryland, USA"}, {"bbox": [85, 1526, 360, 1550], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁶ Of USD 2.15 a day (2017 PPP)"}, {"bbox": [85, 1550, 564, 1573], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁷ GRZ, 2022. Eighth National Development Plan (8NDP)"}, {"bbox": [85, 1573, 1066, 1598], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁸ World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2022, https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2022.pdf"}, {"bbox": [85, 1598, 999, 1623], "category": "Footnote", "text": "⁹ OECD PISA-D National Report: https://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisa-for-development/Zambia_PISA_D_national_report.pdf"}, {"bbox": [85, 1622, 146, 1643], "category": "Footnote", "text": "¹⁰ Ibid."}, {"bbox": [1038, 1681, 1144, 1706], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 5 of 34"}]