WHY ZAMBIA CANNOT AFFORD TO DISMISS THE EUROPEAN UNION.
The European Parliament has adopted a resolution titled “Post-electoral repression in Zambia and the killing of Mutotwe Kafwaya,” following a debate in Strasbourg. The resolution calls for a speedy, transparent investigation into the killing of former Cabinet Minister Mutotwe Kafwaya, accountability for those exercising command responsibility, and speedy, transparent trials for those facing treason charges, with unimpeded access to legal representation.
Some people aligned with the UPND government have responded not with reflection, but with dismissal, suggesting Zambia could simply do away with EU funding altogether, and treating the EU’s concerns as an unwelcome intrusion into Zambia’s political wrangles rather than a serious signal worth heeding. This reaction is not just politically reckless. It is economically indefensible.
The European Union is not a peripheral partner to Zambia’s development. As of May 2025, the EU had committed over €500 million in grants to Zambia under its Global Gateway strategy alone, spanning energy, infrastructure, education, and health, building on the €460-484 million already disbursed under the 11th European Development Fund between 2014 and 2020. This is money that has helped rehabilitate the Kariba Dam, expand access to electricity for hundreds of thousands of households, fund Zambia’s Free Education Initiative to the tune of €110 million, and support smallholder farmers across the country. Zambia’s own Secretary to the Treasury has, in the past, publicly credited the EU as one of the country’s biggest donor partners, and praised Zambia’s efficient use of that funding as a model for the region.
This is precisely why the EU’s concerns cannot be trivialized. Partners who invest hundreds of millions of euros in a country’s development are not obligated to look away when that same country’s institutions are credibly accused of serious human rights failures, an unexplained fatal shooting, court closures, and treason charges against political opponents. The EU’s own Election Observation Mission was present on the ground in Zambia during the August 2026 elections, which is exactly why its concerns carry particular weight: this is not a distant assessment, but one grounded in direct, first-hand observation
Dismissing this resolution, or worse, suggesting Zambia should simply reject EU funding in response, is not an act of sovereignty. It is an act of self-harm. It signals to every development partner, not just the EU, that Zambia’s institutions cannot be trusted to respond to legitimate scrutiny with anything other than defensiveness. That is precisely the kind of signal that puts existing commitments, and future investment, at genuine risk, not because partners are punishing Zambia for having problems, but because they can no longer be confident the government is willing to address them.
Zambia does not need to agree with every word of the resolution to take it seriously. But treating a resolution passed by directly elected representatives of over 400 million EU citizens, backed by the EU’s own election observers on the ground, as something to be mocked or shrugged off is not strength. It is a failure to understand exactly how much is genuinely at stake, for Zambia’s international reputation, for its development partnerships, and most importantly, for whether Zambians ever get honest answers about what happened to Honourable Mutotwe Kafwaya.
By Thompson Luzendi