Membership tripled to more than 3,000, over K3 million mobilised, two National Economic Summits, two new chapters and fourteen institutional partnerships. The National Secretary who compiled that ledger is asking members to promote its author when the association votes on 4 September.
Nicholus Obby Mainza, National Secretary of the Economics Association of Zambia, is standing for President at the association’s Extra-Ordinary Elective AGM on 4 September 2026. He is asking members to judge him on work they have already watched him do rather than on speeches, and his manifesto, launched this week, spends most of its four pages proving the point.
The slogan printed under his name is “A Proven Record. A Stronger EAZ.” In a race where every candidate promises growth, Mainza’s pitch is unusual in one respect: it opens with an audit of his own incumbency instead of a critique of it.
“This is not a manifesto of promises. It is a record you have already lived through and an invitation to keep building on it together.”Nicholus Obby Mainza, EAZ presidential manifesto, August 2026
The term the numbers describe
Start with membership, because almost everything else follows from it. Under Mainza’s secretariat, the EAZ register grew from about 1,000 names to more than 3,000 inside a single term. For a professional body, paying members are both revenue and reach. Each new economist on the roll widens the pool the association can draw on for policy consultations, chapter activities and public positions.
Money followed the members. The manifesto puts resource mobilisation over the term at more than K3 million, raised through sponsorships, strategic partnerships and what the candidate describes as sustained courtesy calls and disciplined revenue work. That money paid for two National Economic Summits that brought government, academia, the private sector and development partners into one room, and for two gala dinners that gave the association its most visible networking platforms.
Geography changed as well. EAZ opened chapters on the Copperbelt and in Livingstone, breaking the pattern in which the association lived almost entirely in Lusaka. At the 2025 National Economic Summit in Livingstone, the association also launched the EAZ Journal, a publication designed to generate funds and to circulate current research among members.
Fourteen signatures
The partnership file may matter more than any single event. Under Mainza’s watch, EAZ signed memoranda of understanding with fourteen institutions: five universities (UNZABECA, Cavendish University, the Copperbelt University, Kwame Nkrumah University and Texila American University), three civil society policy bodies (CTPD, JCTR and CSPR), the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises, the CEEC, two commercial banks in Access Bank and Zanaco, the Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research, and the Industrial Development Corporation.
For an association of individual economists, those signatures convert membership into opportunity: research collaborations, speaking platforms, training partnerships and a jobs pipeline for young graduates. They also put EAZ in rooms where economic policy is actually drafted.
The manifesto lists achievements that rarely make campaign material. Secretariat staff have not missed a month’s pay under his stewardship, a detail that signals institutional stability to any auditor. He led the process to have EAZ enacted by an Act of Parliament, with the relevant documents already signed and reviewed by government. Once that Act takes effect, the association holds legal standing that outlasts any officeholder.
What a Mainza presidency would do
The forward half of the manifesto is organised into five commitments, each aimed at a specific weakness in the association as it stands today.
1. Membership that feels like membership
A resourced national growth target across all regions, stronger branch and regional chapters, faster member communication, and expanded programmes for students and young economists, the pipeline from which future EAZ leaders will come.
2. Governance members can inspect
Regular reporting to members on association activities and finances, timely and well communicated notices for elections and meetings, and consistent application of the EAZ constitution to every member without exception. He points to the record already set: new governance committees established and direct board representation given to ordinary members.
3. Professional development beyond Lusaka
More continuing professional development events, workshops and knowledge sharing, delivered virtually so members outside the major cities are not permanently second class. Early career economists get room to participate and to lead.
4. A louder voice in national policy
Deeper engagement with policymakers on national economic questions, and partnerships with academic and private sector institutions that create measurable value for members. The ambition is straightforward: an EAZ membership that carries weight in every room.
5. Fixing the foundations
This is the section that separates his manifesto from most incumbent documents. It names the association’s problems in plain terms: income that leans on subscriptions, no permanent office, no fleet to support work across the country, and morale that has not kept pace with growth. His answers are a diversified resource mobilisation strategy with reserves that outlast any single term, a permanent secretariat office, operational vehicles so leadership can physically reach chapters, and sustained investment in the people who keep EAZ running.
Two new fixtures complete the list. An EAZ Marathon, on the grounds, as he puts it, that the country needs “very fit economists to face the economic challenges head-on”. And an EAZ awards event honouring the economists who built the association, plus those in the public and private sectors whose work has carried the profession.
| Area | Delivered as National Secretary | Pledged as President |
|---|---|---|
| Membership | Grew from about 1,000 to more than 3,000 | National growth target, stronger regional chapters |
| Funding | More than K3 million mobilised for events | Income diversified beyond subscriptions, with reserves |
| Reach | Copperbelt and Livingstone chapters opened | Permanent office and operational fleet for national coverage |
| Knowledge | Two summits, two gala dinners, EAZ Journal launched | Expanded CPD, virtual workshops, new awards event |
| Governance | New committees, member representation on the board | Regular financial reporting, timely elections and notices |
| Legal standing | EAZ Act of Parliament process led, documents with government | An association on a permanent legal footing |
What this means for members, business and policy
For members, the offer is a card that pays for itself: skills, networks and a name that carries weight in a room. For business, an association running summits, gala dinners, a journal, a marathon and an awards ceremony presents sponsors with identifiable platforms to reach Zambia’s economists, and fourteen standing MoUs suggest the partnership machinery already works. For policy, the stakes are larger than one association. A legally enacted EAZ with 3,000 economists, ZIPAR and IDC among its partners and a working journal can speak into budget and policy debates with a breadth no individual analyst can match.
“Remember EAZ is a Think Tank of cadres who bring about economic development for the country.”From the manifesto
The argument his rivals must answer
Most incumbent campaigns argue that things are fine. Mainza’s argument is stranger and braver: he names what is broken, lists it in his own manifesto, and asks to be hired to fix it on the strength of having fixed things before. He also arrives with outside validation the campaign is happy to cite, a Man of the Year award and a Best Economist award, both presented as national recognition of the standard of leadership he brings to the race.
The wager is that EAZ members, having watched the association triple, would rather promote its record keeper than take a flyer on rhetoric. The closing appeal in the manifesto makes the frame explicit.
“You do not have to take a chance on an unproven promise full of rhetoric. You already know what I deliver. On 4th September, vote for proven leadership. Vote Nicholus Obby Mainza for President and let’s keep EAZ moving forward, together.”
EAZ members go to the polls at the Extra-Ordinary Elective AGM on 4 September. In the candidate’s framing, the ballot asks one question: continue building, or start over. His answer is printed on the front page of his manifesto, and the record behind it is one the association has already lived through.
