Africa’s Social Policy Trajectories: Zambia

Abstract

This study discusses social policy dynamics in Zambia in the colonial and post-colonial periods and how to
rethink social policy to attain gender equitable and transformative social and economic development. The report
focuses on five social policy instruments: education, work and employment, health care, social assistance and
agrarian reform. During Zambia’s colonial period, functional social policy was non-existent and most of the social
protection programmes were strictly for metropolitan citizens employed by the colony. Social policy was
characterised by racial classification in which Europeans had better quality social services than indigenous
Zambians. After independence, social policy formulation and implementation was based on the philosophy of
Humanism which emphasises communal responses to social matters and equitable distribution of national
resources. Since 1991, and beyond, neoliberalism has underpinned the framing of social policies in Zambia. With
the rise of neoliberalism, Zambia implemented structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) which adversely
affected the provision of social services. In 2020, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic constrained most
social services and reduced their coverage of the most vulnerable groups. Social assistance programmes during the
COVID-19 pandemic were largely implemented by donors. Although Zambia has made considerable progress,
persistent gender inequality and inequity indicate the impediments to the achievement of transformative social
policy. This is evident in the effort to improve women’s access to education, health, employment and land, and
the elimination of early and child marriage. While some of the challenges are institutional, several important ones
are entrenched in social structures. Although the government has been committed to gender mainstreaming in
order to achieve equality and equity, most ministries continue to face challenges related to human resource and
technical capacity limitations as well as lack of funding. The public and private sectors have not been developing
gender-responsive budgets. In addition, sector policies are often considered to be gender-blind and the
government has made little progress in mainstreaming gender across sectors.

Keywords: Social policy, gender equality, structural adjustment programmes, social protection, Zambia