Zambia

Abstract

Since independence in 1964, Zambia has experienced severe economic decline. In the early 1990s, real per capita GDP was about two-thirds of what it was in the late 1960s: in 1993 GDP per capita was an estimated K 245 per person (in constant 1977 prices), compared to K 409 in 1965, that is an annual decline of 1.8 per cent. 1 Living standards, as shown by consumption levels and welfare indicators, have also deteriorated. By 1993, the values of both per capita total and private consumption had dropped to around three-quarters of the values they had at independence, falling by 1.3 and 1.5 per cent per year respectively over the period 1965–93. Infant mortality and life expectancy are comparable to what they were at independence, conditions having improved in the first 15 years and deteriorated again thereafter. In recent years, the proportion of households below the poverty line has increased markedly, from one-half in 1980 to two-thirds in 1991 (GRZ 1994: 1). The only other countries, for which data are available, which perform so poorly with regard to social and economic indicators, are countries such as Mozambique and Uganda, which have been subject to years of civil conflict.

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