Key takeaways
- Economist Kampamba Shula says Zambia must move past the election and prepare now for El Niño drought conditions expected to hit power supply, farming and growth.
- The country’s alternative generation capacity cannot yet cover demand, and mining houses, which take more than half of national electricity, are the biggest exposure.
- Shula wants faster investment in solar and other alternatives, including households and firms buying their own systems before the rains fail.
- A serious drought would repeat the 2024 experience, when low Kariba water levels forced ZESCO to cut power for up to 21 hours a day.
- Farmers and millers face the second threat: food inflation. Drought readiness for agriculture is as urgent as backup power.
Zambia has barely finished counting election ballots, and the next economic test is already visible on the horizon. Economist Kampamba Shula says the country must move quickly beyond the polls and prepare for anticipated El Niño weather conditions, warning that inadequate preparation could cut electricity supply, disrupt production and drag down economic growth at exactly the moment a new government needs momentum.
Speaking to Phoenix Business News, Shula made a point that anyone who ran a business through 2024 will recognise immediately. Zambia’s current alternative power generation capacity is not enough to meet growing electricity demand, particularly from the mining sector. When the water level at Kariba falls, there is no backup fleet large enough to take its place.
Why the power math does not add up
Roughly four-fifths of Zambia’s installed generation is hydro, anchored by Kariba North Bank and the Kafue Gorge stations. That mix served the country well in wet years. In the 2024 El Niño drought it did not: low Kariba storage forced ZESCO into load shedding that at its worst reached 21 hours a day, shut production lines across manufacturing and left small businesses running on costly diesel generators.
The mining sector deepens the exposure. Copper and gold operations on the Copperbelt and North-Western Province draw more than half of the electricity consumed nationally, much of it bought through the Copperbelt Energy Corporation. Every new mine and every expansion adds to a demand base that a drought-hit Kariba cannot reliably supply. As The Zambian Economist reported in its power deficit analysis, the gap between firm supply and peak demand has been structural for years, not seasonal.
Solar, and why Shula wants households in the picture
Shula’s proposed remedy has two tracks. The first is investment in alternative energy sources, with solar at the front of the queue, large enough and fast enough to protect economic activity before the drought arrives. The second is less conventional: he wants the public encouraged to invest in their own alternative power as the country prepares, spreading generation across rooftops and factory yards instead of leaving it all to the grid.
That second track matters for more than supply. Distributed solar shifts the cost of resilience from ZESCO’s strained balance sheet to private balance sheets, and it keeps small enterprises trading when the grid fails. Zambia has one structural advantage here: insolation levels among the highest in the region, which shortens payback periods for firms that buy systems before, rather than during, a crisis when equipment prices and installation queues spike.
The food security front
Power is only half of Shula’s warning. He stressed the need for effective measures to protect agriculture from drought, which he called a serious threat to food security. The 2024 season showed the mechanism: failed maize across much of the southern half of the country, a national crop sharply below the five-year average, and maize meal prices that fed directly into headline inflation just as households were absorbing fuel and kwacha pressures.
Policy tools exist. The Food Reserve Agency holds strategic stocks, and this year’s K347 per 50kg bag maize floor price signals how the state plans to keep grain flowing into reserves. Irrigation expansion, early seed distribution and drought-tolerant varieties decide whether the next dry season reads as a manageable drawdown of stocks or a repeat of emergency imports.
What it means for business, investors and policy
For businesses, the practical reading of Shula’s warning is to treat backup power and water-efficient operations as budget lines for the next two quarters, not contingencies. Firms that weathered 2024 with generators and solar arrays kept customers; those that did not spent months rebuilding them.
For investors, a credible El Niño response is a signal worth tracking. Speed on solar projects, battery storage and transmission tells you whether the incoming administration can convert its energy reform talk into megawatts, a question that also shapes the outlook covered in The Zambian Economist’s analysis of the second-term agenda.
For policymakers, Shula’s message is about sequencing. Drought mitigation decided after the rains fail costs more and delivers less. Grain procurement, generation contracts and household-level incentives all work better on a clock measured in months before the season, not weeks into it. The economic inheritance facing the new government already includes a tight fiscal position; an unmanaged drought would add food subsidies and energy imports to it.
The bottom line
Shula’s warning is not that El Niño will strike Zambia; forecasters have done that already. It is that the window for affordable preparation is open now and closes quickly. Households and firms that can invest in their own power should, the country needs generation it does not yet have, and agriculture needs protective measures in place before the planting season. Failure to prepare, as he put it, would carry far-reaching consequences for productivity and for household welfare alike. Zambia has been through this script once already this decade. The difference between 2024 and the next drought will be decided by what is done in the next few months.
Related coverage
- Zambia’s Power Deficit and the Real Cost to Business
- What the Next Government Inherits: Zambia’s Economic Position on 14 August 2026
- FRA Maize Floor Price 2026: K347 a Bag, and What It Costs
- Zambia Copper Production 2026: Can Copper Deliver Jobs, Growth and Lasting Prosperity?
- Doing Business in Zambia
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