By Meamui Mwendaweli, Student Contributor Writer | The Zambian Economist

Economic growth is necessary for Zambia’s development, but it is not enough on its own. Growth reaches ordinary citizens only when it turns into affordable essentials, reliable public services and decent work.

Rising production, new investment and better national indicators can all signal that an economy is moving in the right direction. For a country trying to diversify beyond copper and lift living standards, that matters. But it leaves a question that statistics alone cannot answer: what does growth mean to the ordinary Zambian?

The answer is found in a household struggling to meet its daily needs, a young person looking for meaningful work, or a patient who cannot easily afford the medicine she has been prescribed. Their experience raises a basic question about development. Is it enough for an economy to grow, or must that growth also improve life for the people who sustain it?

Growth and human development are closely linked, but they are not the same thing. Growth creates resources that can improve lives. Whether those benefits reach citizens depends on how the gains are shared, how public money is used and whether policy responds to what people actually need.

Growth is necessary, but it is not the whole story

Zambia’s recent performance deserves credit. Real GDP grew by 3.8 per cent in 2025, matching the revised figure for 2024, according to preliminary estimates from the Zambia Statistics Agency that the World Bank also reports. That came after the 2023/2024 drought cut harvests and hydropower output, and after load-shedding squeezed mines, factories and small businesses. Recovering from that shock matters for the country’s development plans.

Still, GDP measures how the value of output changes. It does not tell us how secure a family feels, whether a clinic has the drugs a patient needs, or whether a graduate can find work. A rise in average income can also hide wide gaps between households, communities and provinces.

That gap matters in Zambia because poverty remains widespread. The World Bank’s Poverty and Equity Assessment, published in February 2025, found that 64.3 per cent of the population, about 12.6 million people, lived on less than US$2.15 a day in 2022. The bank ranked that the sixth highest rate in the world. The figure predates the drought, so it is not a measure of poverty today, but it shows the size of the task. (See also our earlier look at whether growth is reaching ordinary households.)

None of this means growth has failed. It means growth needs company: policies that create productive jobs, strengthen essential services and give households the means to take up new opportunities. A growing economy is a means to development, not its only measure.

The household is where development becomes real

Most citizens experience the economy through the price of mealie meal, the reliability of electricity, the cost of a bus fare and whether a month’s income covers a month’s bills. Those everyday costs are the real test of whether better national numbers are reaching living standards. Recent fuel price increases and the kwacha’s October slide show how quickly those costs can move.

Afrobarometer interviewed 1,200 Zambian adults in July 2024 and published the results in March 2025. Seventy-three per cent described the country’s economic condition as fairly bad or very bad. Rising living costs topped the list of problems people wanted government to address, named by 38 per cent among their three priorities. Only 11 per cent said the government was doing well at keeping prices stable.

These are perceptions, not measurements of GDP or household income. Their weight lies in the gap they reveal between national economic debate and the way citizens judge their own circumstances.

When essentials absorb a large share of household income, modest economic gains do little for financial security. A fall in inflation does not mean prices have returned to earlier levels either. It means prices are rising more slowly. Goods and services do not become affordable again on their own.

That distinction should shape how progress is reported. Better macroeconomic indicators matter, but citizens should also be able to see gains in their purchasing power, their job prospects and their access to services. The useful question is whether households are becoming more able to meet their needs and plan for the future.

Human development must stay at the centre of economic policy

Zambia’s Eighth National Development Plan (2022 to 2026) recognises the link between economic transformation and human development. Its four strategic development areas are economic transformation and job creation, human and social development, environmental sustainability, and a good governance environment.

The framework accepts that development needs more than higher output. A productive economy depends on a healthy, educated and skilled population, and better lives depend on the resources that economic activity generates. As the plan’s term ends this year, the test is whether those priorities have supported one another in practice.

Take healthcare. Health spending is often filed as a social cost, yet it also supports productivity. People who get timely treatment can study, work and take part in community life. Untreated illness, or medical bills that drain a household’s savings, does the opposite.

As a pharmacy student, I have learned to look past the existence of a health facility and ask whether people can obtain the medicines and services they need. A medicine being on the national list does not mean a patient can afford it, or find it in stock when treatment is due. In the same Afrobarometer survey, 48 per cent of Zambians said they or a family member had gone without needed medicines or medical treatment at least several times in the previous year. That was a big improvement on 71 per cent in 2022, but it still describes nearly half the country.

This is where economic policy reaches people’s lives. Decisions on public spending, procurement, health financing and the management of public resources decide whether essential services are there when they are needed.

The Ministry of Health’s National Health Accounts for 2022 to 2024, produced with World Health Organization support and published in April 2026, show total health expenditure rising from K24.9 billion in 2022 to K32.3 billion in 2024. The same report shows why kwacha totals tell only part of the story.

Spending per person fell in dollar terms because the kwacha depreciated, and that matters for a country that imports most of its medicines and medical supplies. Government’s share of health spending in its own budget also slipped, leaving Zambia well short of the 15 per cent Abuja Declaration target it has signed. The fall in the out-of-pocket share is welcome, though the report itself cautions that the household figures are projected from the 2022 Living Conditions Monitoring Survey.

More money is an input, not a result. The next questions are what outcomes the money is buying, how fairly services are reaching people and where the gaps remain. The same applies to education, water and sanitation: spending matters, but citizens experience the quality and reach of the service.

Young people need opportunities, not growth figures alone

For a country as young as Zambia, development must also be measured by the chances young people have to take part in the economy.

Growth that expands productive industries, strengthens small businesses and creates decent jobs can raise household incomes and widen the country’s productive base. But the link between growth and employment is not automatic. Which sectors drive the expansion, which skills employers want and where investment goes all decide how many people benefit. The recent target of 250,000 jobs under the World Bank minerals compact will be judged on exactly that.

Young people need more than access to education. They need pathways from the classroom into employment, enterprise, research and professional work. That requires training matched to the economy’s needs, a business environment that lets firms grow, affordable finance for small businesses, and real openings for young people to contribute.

For university students, the distance between a degree and a job is personal. A qualification should improve one’s prospects, but the economy must also create work in which those skills can be used.

This is not a question of individual ambition. It is a question of economic structure and public policy. If universities and colleges produce skilled graduates while productive jobs remain scarce, the country loses much of the return on its investment in human capital. Efforts to match job seekers with employers help, but they cannot replace demand for labour.

Zambia’s development agenda therefore has to ask not only how much the economy produces, but how well it turns that production into livelihoods, uses the skills it has paid to build and opens opportunities for the next generation.

How should Zambia measure whether development is working?

If development is judged by its effect on people’s lives, accountability becomes central.

Development plans set priorities, budgets allocate money and institutions run programmes. A policy or a budget line does not guarantee the intended result. Progress has to be measured against clear targets, and the results reported in language citizens can follow. The Budget 2027 debate is a chance to do that.

Useful measures would include whether employment is expanding, whether essential services are becoming easier to reach, whether poverty is falling and whether gains are reaching disadvantaged communities. These should sit alongside GDP growth, not replace it.

Reliable, timely data make this possible. The Zambia Statistics Agency already produces evidence on output and living conditions, and the Office of the Auditor General reports on how public money is used. That evidence should be used consistently to show progress, expose persistent problems and guide changes in policy.

A fair assessment also recognises that outcomes depend on more than policy. Economic shocks, drought, population growth and global commodity prices all complicate delivery. Credible scrutiny accepts those constraints while still asking whether the policy response is working and whether public resources are being used responsibly.

The aim is not to dismiss achievements or to pretend every problem can be solved at once. It is to keep decisions anchored in evidence, public priorities and measurable results.

Redefining what progress should mean

Zambia does not have to choose between economic growth and human development. The two should be pursued together.

A stronger economy can expand the money available for infrastructure, healthcare, education and social protection. Effective institutions can, in turn, make sure those investments build people’s capabilities and support more durable economic activity. Economic diversification, productive employment, responsible public spending and investment in essential services should be treated as connected priorities, not competing ones.

Development is also not experienced evenly. National averages can improve while particular households and communities fall further behind. Monitoring progress should ask who benefits, who is left out and what barriers keep opportunity from reaching different parts of the population.

In the end, Zambia’s development agenda should be judged by more than the pace of economic expansion. It should show up in whether families can meet their basic needs, young people can build futures, patients can get the medicines they are prescribed and citizens can share in the country’s progress.

GDP growth tells us which direction the economy is moving. It cannot, on its own, tell us whether that economy is delivering the life its people hope to live. The measure of progress should extend beyond how much Zambia produces to what its people are able to do, reach and achieve as a result.

Related reading: Zambia’s Q2 2026 Economy: Stability Deepens, the Growth Dividend Still Missing and Zambia’s Turnaround Won the Election. Now It Has to Deliver.

About the author

Meamui Mwendaweli

Student Contributor Writer | Lusaka, Zambia

Meamui Mwendaweli is a Bachelor of Pharmacy student at Levy Mwanawasa Medical University in Zambia. Her interests include public policy, economic development, governance and public health, and in particular how policy decisions affect ordinary citizens.

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