Gregory Mthembu-Salter The Zambian government this week secured $1-billion in funding from international donors despite pre-election political intrigue that has suggested dictatorial behaviour on the part of President Frederick Chiluba. The Consultative Group (which is the annual gathering of donors) for the first time met in Lusaka rather than Paris. The group gave the government the benefit of the doubt and pledged $1-billion for 2000- 2001.
During the meeting, Zambian human rights organisations and other civil society groupings had taken full advantage of the group’s Lusaka location, pressing demands for press freedom, a level playing field during the election build-up, and reform of the Public Order Act, which gives the police wide-ranging powers to ban and break up political gatherings. Civil society representatives had observer status at the group meeting for the first time, and almost all their concerns were included in its closing statement.
In Zambia, where massive debt has made the government heavily dependent on donors, the growing ability of these organisations to influence donor conditions for aid is giving them unprecedented leverage over government policy. What they do not have much influence over, however, is policy implementation. It is in the coming months, rather than at the group meeting itself, that the real balance of power between the government and civil society will be revealed. Donors insist they will release the money pledged in Lusaka only if the government carries out its good governance promises. However, at last year’s group meeting in Paris, the government made good governance commitments too, only to ignore them until a month or so before this year’s group meeting.
Donor representatives privately concede that there is a good chance of this happening again, in part because of the difficulty of tying good governance to specific performance targets. Despite earlier speculation, donors showed no interest in the fate of former environment minister Ben Mwila. Mwila was ejected from the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) at a disciplinary hearing on July 7 for declaring a presidential bid. Chiluba had earlier banned anyone in the MMD making public their presidential ambitions. Chiluba is nearing the end of his second term, and is forbidden by the Zambian Constitution from running again, so the MMD is due to pick another presidential candidate soon. Mwila claims he is being victimised, and says Chiluba is behaving dictatorially. However, donors remember Mwila when he was minister of defence, and strongly suspected of supporting Unita, and are not prepared to champion his cause today. One aid condition inserted by the donors themselves was for increased transparency and accountability in the use of public funds. Despite years of attempts by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to monitor the way government money is spent, Zambia’s public finances remain opaque, and powerful political figures have a vested interest in their staying that way. The issue of the covert siphoning of public funds will be even more critical next year, when MPs will be looking for all sorts of ways to shore up their support base ahead of the election. Much of the credit for the donors’ decision to put their trust in the government’s commitment to reform, despite past setbacks, is owed to finance minister Katele Kalumba. The urbane and likeable minister is a complete contrast to his abrasive and poorly briefed predecessor, Edith Nawakwi, and impressed the group with his command of the issues, his openness and his encouragement of debate.
Donors also felt obliged to reward the Zambian government for selling its copper mines last March, after years of delay, and for now proceeding, apparently with gusto, with the sale of Zambia’s telecommunications and electricity parastatals.
Also encouraging donor largesse was a powerful presentation by Unicef and Zambia’s health ministry to the Consultative Group meeting about the impact of HIV/Aids. Aids is wreaking havoc in Zambia, and about 20% of the population is thought to be HIV-positive. The Zambian government identifies HIV prevention as a key component of its Aids strategy, and donors, particularly after the Durban Aids conference, want to support this.
Zambia owes $6-billion in debt, a staggering 800% of its annual export earnings. Donors agreed at the group meeting that this debt is unsustainable and indicated that a positive decision on debt relief could be reached by January 2001. However, it will still be a long time before Zambia actually receives the relief, and Jubilee 2000 anti-debt campaigners fear that while the government might get the funds it needs next year, the poor who need the debt relief more than anyone will get too little, too late.