Historical Perspectives on Zambia’s Mining Booms and Busts

Abstract

What will be the long-term consequences on the political economy of Zambia of the short-lived boom in the prices of copper and cobalt, which lasted approximately five years from 2004 until 2008? For the majority of the youthful Zambian population, the boom was their first experience of a period when the mining industry, regarded as strategic to the national economy, operated as a potential benefit and not a burden. Until around 2004, Zambia had experienced almost 30 years during which its profound economic dependency on the mining industry came to be perceived as a major cause of its economic decline. During this period Zambia went from being one of Africa’s richest countries, with visions of becoming a “modern,” “developed” country—as illustrated in the work of James Ferguson—to one of the continent’s poorest and most indebted countries.1 The recent mining boom appeared to represent a clear break from this period, generating new and challenging questions for analysts, politicians, civil society organizations, and, most importantly, ordinary Zambians. With the onset of the current global economic crisis, it is as yet unclear whether Zambia is any better placed to cope with wild fluctuations in copper prices than it has proven to be in earlier periods. In a national economy dominated by a single product, the price of which is prone to drastic fluctuations, the question that has consistently arisen is how to ensure short-term profits made in the mining industry are converted into long-term benefits for Zambians themselves.

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