IF HH WINS AGAIN, THESE ARE THE MINISTRIES ZAMBIA ACTUALLY NEEDS
The government structure Zambia is running on was not designed for 2026 and beyond. A second Hichilema term is the country’s best chance to fix that. Here is what serious transformation looks like.
Hakainde Hichilema spent his first term putting out fires. Debt restructuring. IMF negotiations. Fiscal stabilisation. The unglamorous, painful work of stopping a bleeding economy. Most of it had to be done. Little of it was exciting.
But a second term is a different conversation entirely.
If HH gets another five years, the question is no longer whether Zambia can survive. The question is whether Zambia can compete. And right now, the answer is complicated by one uncomfortable truth: the government’s own structure is holding the country back.
The world has reorganised around digital economies, climate shocks, and youth demographics. Zambia’s cabinet has not fully caught up. Here are the ministries that should change that.
1. MINISTRY OF DIGITAL ECONOMY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Rwanda is building smart cities. Kenya is exporting fintech. Nigeria is producing tech unicorns. Zambia is still treating ICT as a footnote in someone else’s portfolio.
That has to end.
Artificial intelligence is not a futuristic concept anymore. It is already reshaping how governments deliver services, how businesses compete, and how countries attract investment. Zambia needs a dedicated ministry that drives national AI policy, governs data, regulates digital financial services, and gives the country’s growing startup ecosystem a serious institutional home.
Copper built this country. Data could sustain it. But only if someone in government is actually paying attention.
2. MINISTRY OF THE CREATIVE AND CULTURAL ECONOMY
Zambian music is crossing borders. Zambian fashion is finding audiences. Zambian film is growing. And government is watching all of it happen from a distance, with no policy, no financing framework, and no real institutional support.
Nigeria turned its creative sector into a multi-billion dollar industry. Botswana has taken deliberate steps to do the same. Zambia treats its artists like a hobby the country happens to have.
A dedicated ministry would enforce intellectual property rights, create financing pathways for creative businesses, promote cultural exports, and bring the arts formally into economic planning. This is not soft policy. This is youth employment. This is national brand. This is money.
3. MINISTRY OF FOOD SYSTEMS AND NUTRITIONAL SECURITY
Agriculture and food security are not the same thing. Zambia has consistently confused the two.
The Ministry of Agriculture tracks production. Maize. Fertiliser. FISP distribution. But Zambia has a nutrition crisis that production numbers do not capture. Stunting rates remain high. Post-harvest losses are enormous. Diet diversity is poor. And no single ministry is accountable for any of it in a joined-up way.
A food systems ministry would work across the full chain, from production to processing, distribution, school feeding programmes, and measurable nutrition outcomes. It would hold government accountable not just for how much food Zambia grows, but for whether Zambians are actually eating well.
THE REAL TEST OF A SECOND TERM
HH’s first term was defined by necessity. His second term will be defined by choice. The ministries above are not additions for the sake of additions. They are the institutional architecture of a country that is serious about where it needs to be in twenty years.
The countries that will be ahead of Zambia in 2045 are not the ones with more resources. They are the ones that organised themselves earlier, smarter, and with greater honesty about what the world actually demands.
Zambia has the chance. The question is whether the will is there to match it.
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Zambian Angle