Lack of context leaves Afrobarometer findings on Zambia misleading
By Whitney Mulobela
All surveys whatever their intentions when done without the backdrop of a specific context from which findings should be viewed can lead to erroneous conclusions and may be downright misleading.
This could be the fate of the survey findings on Zambia by Afrobarometer, which were released in a statement on October 31, 2024 purporting that a majority of Zambians are dissatisfied with their country’s economic condition and overall direction, and also describing their personal living conditions as bad.
Afrobarometer is a Pan-African survey research network that provides data on African experiences and evaluations of democracy, governance and quality of life and its findings on Zambia make comment and observations necessary. The survey was conducted by interviewing a sample of 1,200 adult citizens between 8th July and 28th July, 2024, to yield country-level results within a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points at a 95 per cent confidence level.
The statement reported four key findings. The first one is that two-thirds or 66 per cent of Zambians say the country is heading in the wrong direction, a 20 percentage increase from 2022.
At the outset, this presents an obvious problem of how to understand the phrase ‘wrong direction’, which has not been defined, qualified or contextualised and therefore remained a vague blanket characterisation. The question may be asked, is it the issue of political direction or economic policy?
Here are some questions which Afrobarometer needs to address regarding this so-called perceived wrong direction:
Debt restructuring accomplished and support has continued to flow totaling $561 million to Zambia as a result of this, the two key mining assets of Konkola Copper Mines and Mopani Copper Mines have been unlocked and investment of billions of dollars is set to be injected into those operations, joining other on-going projects such as First Quantum’s Nickel project’s secured $100 million, CNMC $1.3 million, $100 for Mimbula Fitula, $150 million KoBold Metals, and now the comprehensive exploration covering the whole country. Does this portend wrong direction in the mining sector?
Take the area of creation of jobs, in which the government has taken the lead securing 39,428 jobs for teachers, 14, 276 in health, and 4,500 in defence forces, while the private sector has contributed 13,632 in manufacturing, 9,432 in mining, 8,396 in agriculture, 7,252 in transport and 2,000 other in other sectors. Does this look like a country going in the wrong direction?
What about government’s commitment to take economic activity to the local community level through the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) which has seen disbursements of equal amounts to every constituency, rising from K1.5 million when the United Party for National Development (UPND) came to power to more than K30 million in the new budget.
Does this also portray a picture of a government going in the wrong direction?
The second key finding by Afrobarometer is that three-quarters or 73 per cent of Zambians say their country’s economic condition is “fairly bad” or “very bad”, while two-thirds or 66 per cent feel the same about their personal living conditions.
This finding, perhaps more so than the others, needed to be cast against the background of the now well articulated adverse impacts of drought during the last farming season. The drought has resulted in Zambia receiving low harvests of the staple crop maize, and about five million vulnerable Zambians facing the threat of hunger. The drought has also hit the country’s electricity supply capacity resulting in load shedding which, at worst reached 21 hours per day, compromising energy supply to the productive sector.
This grim scenario is what is also responsible for missing the target for projected gross domestic product growth for 2024.
In this context, reduced economic activity as a result of inadequate supply of electricity has impacted both the country and households. Therefore, characterising Zambia’s current economic condition as “fairly bad” or “very bad” is not news. Neither is the fact that 66 per cent of the people interviewed said the same about their personal living conditions. In fact, this is simply agreeing with the picture that the government itself has been painting.
The unusual or newsworthy finding is the one at number three, which said that “Fewer Zambians went without food, medical care, and a cash income during the past year”.
This then is testament to the fact that in the face of the severe impact of drought and all the noted effects to the national and personal economic conditions of Zambians, the government’s drought mitigation measures are having the desired effects. For example, it means the programme of shifting maize stocks to drought-hit maize deficit areas of the country for targeted community sales is meeting the government’s commitment that no Zambian shall go without food because of the effects of drought during the last farming season.
This key finding number three also means that apart from being shielded from hunger Zambians have experienced appreciable improvements in accessing medical care and facilitations for a cash income. These are tangible experiences.
The last key finding is a no brainer. “The increasing cost of living tops the list of important problems that Zambians want the government to address, followed by water supply, health, infrastructure/roads, farming/agriculture, food shortage/famine and electricity”. Citizens faced with the current economic conditions will put arresting the escalating cost of living at the top of the list of priorities for their government.
This being said, what remains to be addressed is the hierarchy of the presentation of the key findings, starting with one about “wrong direction”, and relegating or de-emphasising the very unusual feat of “fewer Zambians went without food, medical care and a cash income”.
The question then is, why has Afrobarometer chosen to accentuate the contentious subjective finding on perceived “wrong direction”, and down-play the tangible pleasantly unusual feat of having fewer Zambians going without food during a time of these severe impacts of the country facing shortages which have necessitated imports of maize?
The author is a lawyer, governance expert and State House Chief Comminication Strategist