Development analyst, Charity Musamba has called for the establishment of a multisectoral indaba that will explore ways in which Zambia can be self-dependent and totally free from foreign aid.
Recently, US President Donald Trump ordered a 90 day freeze on new funding for almost all U.S. foreign assistance, with USAID, an American government agency, responsible for administering aid and development assistance in developing countries such as Zambia, directly affected.
In an interview with ZANIS, Dr Musamba says Zambia should begin exploring ways of being self-dependent, in the wake of the Trump administration pausing USAID programmes for a three-month period pending a review.
The Analyst, who is also a Development Studies lecturer in the School of Humanities at the University of Zambia (UNZA), said Zambia needs to come up with an exit plan from being a donor dependent country, in the long term.
Experts, the public and private sector need to converge and come up with a practical plan of making Zambia entirely dependent on its own resources in the medium to long term, she suggested.
Dr Musamba said the same manner the country has held constitutional review processes over the years, is the way a national process to discuss Zambia’s dependence on foreign aid can be instituted
“We need to have a plan for donor dependency exit that requires a multisectoral approach where we do not have dominance of representatives from one particular sector”.
“There is need to come up with a practical plan to help us envision how we can reduce our dependence on donors,” she said.
She stressed the need for mindset change among Zambians to reduce dependency on aid adding that the country needs to brace itself for similar decisions from other foreign donors.
She claimed there is pressure mounting from taxpayers in developed countries on how much money their countries are spending on foreign aid at the expense of domestic needs.
Developing countries such as Zambia are capable of being financially independent which lies heavily on the way countries manage their own resources, she observed.
