Editorial

Kanene Ndeke, Country Director MS Zambia

As the year 2005 is running towards its end, MS Zambia has started to take stock of key developments and challenges in the year and what will be the key challenges that MS Zambia and its partners should prepare themselves to address in the year(s) ahead.

Zambia is in the process of adopting a new constitution. After awaiting for the draft constitution, the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) finally completed a draft constitution and report. The public are expected to provide their comments and suggestions before a final constitution is adopted. Apart from differences on how and who should adopt the final constitution, there are still key constitutional issues where differences of opinion and interests are still unresolved. This newsletter highlights some of these differences, and it is hoped that readers can put their opinion and positions on these key issues through the right channels in time before decisions are made on the highest law of the country- The Constitution.

The country will prepare a 5th National Development Plan which will provide a framework, plans and strategies for how the country hopes to address poverty and reach the Millennium Development Goals. A key concern in previous plans has been that government has not involved and seriously taken the concerns of the local people in preparing development plans aimed at addressing the poverty these people face in a daily basis. When contacted by Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) to sponsor district and sub-district level participants in the preparation of inputs from the civil society in the development of the 5th National Development Plan, MS Zambia was quite supportive.

Zambia is now in the process of developing and adopting an implementation plan for decentralization. The implementation of the decentralization policy has a bearing on improving the possibilities for having a development process influenced by the concerned people as well as it will visibly promote democracy and good governance at local level.

But why are we still concerned about the constitution of Zambia almost every five years. Why should the preparation of a national development plan which is now the 5th still not be part of law so that local communities and stakeholders at district and provincial levels feel that it is part of the law to prepare a national plan Plan? Why should the decentralization policy which has been talked about for so many years still be difficult to implement in Zambia? What are the common challenges that keep Zambia dealing with almost the same challenges decade after decade?

This is the question which we hope the articles in this newsletter will provoke, and it is MS Zambia’s hope that in finding answers to these questions, ordinary Zambians can begin to address the real challenges and bottlenecks that if not tackled will keep the country on a one step forward, two steps backwards stance. Are there issues that needs to be addressed as a matter of priority? What are these issue and how can we go about addressing them?

MS Zambia hopes that readers and ordinary Zambians can begin to address these challenges by providing sustainable solutions where ordinary people can feel they have a voice and a say on how to address poverty in the country.