Meats from birds

By Derrick Silimina

Whereas chicken is a very popular meat in Africa, most of it is imported. Many African nations lack the technology to rear chickens on a large scale and process the meat to acceptable market standards.

It is the same in Zambia. Meats from birds such as chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese and pigeons among others are consumed. However, in many grocery stores and supermarkets, meat freezers are full of imported meat. 

Among the top sources of Zambia’s meat is South Africa, the continent’s leading producer of poultry products. Local farmers are afraid that they may be pushed out of business. 

Recognising the special needs of the agricultural sector, the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock is looking for ways to promote local farming and value addition. It is estimated that over half a million citizens engage in poultry farming. 

For this reason, Zambia’s first-ever international poultry exposition (ZIPEX) was recently held in the capital Lusaka. The goal was to provide a platform for players to network, build long-term relationships and learn about new technologies.

“These private sector initiatives show Zambians’ amazing ability to create and innovate, and as a government, we are here to support such initiatives that seek to display Zambia’s opportunities in this industry,” Makozo Chikote, fisheries and livestock minister, said at the event. 

The ZIPEX attracted all types of poultry farmers, breeders, processors, traders and distributors. The three-day event also attracted participants from the greater poultry value chain, who included equipment and feed suppliers, allied technical experts, private and public institutions and visitors from the region.

Daimone Siulapwa, one of the ZIPEX organisers, said: “We are very confident that we will contribute to the growth of the poultry industry in Zambia by creating the much-needed link among the various players.” Dominic Chanda, president of the Poultry Association of Zambia, hopes that his industry can address some of the challenges, such as import duty on poultry equipment which hinders mass production.

Zambia tussle maize meal crisis

By Derrick Silimina

Many Zambians rely on maize as their main source of food. Popularly known as “mealie meal”, the crop is widely grown in the country for both consumption and export. Now, as harvests reduce, a crisis has ensued.

There is currently a critical shortage of mealie meal in some parts of the country, and it is now common to find long queues of people scampering to grab a bag of maize.

The shortage is in part driven by external demand for maize grain in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and other East African countries affected by drought and lack of grain supplies due to the war in Ukraine.

Therefore, prices are skyrocketing. According to the Zambia Statistics Agency retail prices between February 2022 and February 2023 showed that the national average price of a 25 kilograms (kg) bag of mealie meal increased by more than 25 %. A check in most retail shops indicated that a 25 kg bag goes for between K 200 and K 250 ($ 10 to $ 13) on average.

However, it is projected that these prices will surge by about 60 % to reach approximately K 270 and K 350 per 25 kg bag, writes the Farmer’s Journal Africa.

“We have suffered as consumers. The commodity should be available and at an affordable price,” says Michael Chilufya from Lusaka.

The current situation has induced an upswing of smugglers of maize in the southern African country. Cartels of smugglers are now heightening the transportation of maize across the border in the DRC where there is a lucrative price of maize meal and grain.

The Zambian government had previously estimated that the country had more than 800,000 metric tons of white maize, which should have been sufficient for local consumption before the country’s 2022/2023 harvest season.

The huge demand from East Africa and South Sudan has affected the country’s plans. Now, traders are buying up the maize from farmers and exporting it. This has led to local food shortages and threatened to escalate into a food-insecurity crisis. 

The shortage of mealie meal has also reached the Copperbelt Province where consumers are complaining about inadequate supply coupled with hiked prices in retail shops.

Copperbelt minister, Elisha Matambo, recently described the shortage as a crisis: “We warn all those who will be found smuggling mealie meal in the Copperbelt that they will be visited by the law because mealie meal is important for every citizen and the government will not allow unscrupulous people to continue sabotaging our food security policy.” 

Matambo also asked retailers not to be part of those sabotaging the Zambian government during the crisis. She further said: “We appeal to all members of the public to come forward and report any suspicious vehicle or group of people smuggling mealie meal.”

The Zambian government has since put measures in place, such as the temporary suspension on the issuance of export permits until the commodity is stabilized. 

However, they are cautious not to implement a permanent ban on exports because it would affect the long-term export trade. 

Desperate for alternative energy sources

 

By Derrick Silimina

As South Africans adjust to living in darkness with no end in sight to power outages, many are desperate for alternative energy sources. 

Known locally as load shedding, widespread electricity blackouts are carried out multiple times a day by state-owned energy utility Eskom to avoid the total collapse of the grid. 

For some people, lack of reliable power supply can be the difference between life and death, as blackouts have become routine, affecting every part of South African society. 

“These power outages are bad for my fledgling business. I am just trying to grow so that I can take care of my family,” Bongani Malinga told ChinAfrica. 

Malinga, who runs a startup cleaning services company in Johannesburg, expressed concern that without constant power supply, it is difficult to use electric cleaning equipment.  

Nothando Simelani, another entrepreneur, said, “I run an ice-cream shop and whenever we experience chronic electricity outages, our products go bad, and that makes it hard to sustain this type of business.”  

Simelani believes that with the government’s quest to invest in renewable energy sources, many startup businesses won’t have to shut up shop. 

New funding source  

For this reason, one of the world’s most important groups, BRICS, is creating a new global multilateral architecture to deal with the global investment challenges. 

The BRICS countries have seen  their economic influence increase over the past decades as drivers of global growth, trade and investment. 

Arguably, BRICS is more than just an acronym. It is a combination of influential emerging market economies that are collaborating to restructure the global economic multilateral order to make it fairer, inclusive and equitable. 

According to the 2022 BRICS Investment Report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the group, which represents 41 percent of the world’s population, is driving global growth in trade and investment in response to the need to utilize foreign investment for sustainable development. 

Since South Africa joined the group in 2010, its economy has grown substantially, especially in energy investment.  

“As BRICS nations, we have to do all within our means to mitigate the impact of poverty, food and energy insecurity among our people. We have to advance sustainable and inclusive development that safeguards us against future shocks. We want to promote mutual trade and investment, and implement structural reforms and other measures to improve the business environment,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said during the 2022 BRICS Business Forum. 

Part of South Africa’s response to the energy crisis involves implementing a just transition to a low carbon economy as climate change also poses considerable risks to jobs, businesses and the economy. Further, South Africa is among the most water-scarce countries in the world, and recent events in KwaZulu-Natal have shown that extreme weather events such as floods are occurring more often and with a devastating impact on infrastructure. 

A recent communique adopted by the BRICS Energy Ministers Meeting acknowledged the need to remove barriers and facilitate trade and investment in global energy markets.  

“We highly value intra-BRICS cooperation in the field of energy which plays a positive role in strengthening our energy security and promoting economic growth. We will continue to work to reinforce and deepen collaborative actions in the area in line with the agreed roadmap through strengthening BRICS Energy Research Cooperation Platform (ERCP) and other means and mechanisms as appropriate. We will strive to improve the conditions for investment in the energy sector, while paying special attention to project preparation and financing,” read part of the communique. 

Energy experts are of the view that ensuring access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all is crucial for social and economic development and lifting people from poverty as well as realizing the Sustainable Development Goals. 

High on the agenda of this year’s 15th BRICS Summit will be the transition to greener energies as South Africa hosts the event.  

The economic grouping is also looking to expand with countries like Saudi Arabia, Argentina and many others showing interest amid major shifts in the geopolitics, because any of the potential members will add weight to the group, which already consists of resource-rich nations and highly industrialized economies. 

As the global economic power is shifting from the traditional West towards the multifaceted BRICS group, this presents an opportune time for South Africa to rekindle its economic prowess. With this, it is prudent for South Africa to consider in real terms the geopolitical influence that can be harnessed based on its strategic position gained from the BRICS group.

Development projects  

Interestingly, the New Development Bank (NDB) - a multilateral development bank established in 2015 by the BRICS countries - is aimed at mobilizing resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in the BRICS countries. 

For instance, as the NDB has financed more than 80 investment projects worth $180 billion, this has opened up large trade markets for South Africa, where projects worth $30 billion have been approved for implementation. 

In this context, the Russian state energy company Rosatom recently signed an agreement with South Africa to construct small hydropower plants in Mpumalanga as a key component of South Africa’s energy security strategy in line with the BRICS roadmap for energy cooperation by 2025, which is aimed at building a strategic partnership as well as identifying the needs and challenges to energy security and finding areas where member cooperation can provide solutions. 

This is a huge boost considering that South Africa is in dire need of infrastructure upgrade projects to solve the problems of decaying infrastructure, and growing population and economic demand. 

Certainly, the NDB is the most viable solution for the lack of private sector investment on the African continent, making it a perfect option to raise resources and funding for the continent’s immediate needs. 

Over 17 percent of South Africa’s exports go to the BRICS countries, while 29 percent of its total imports come from BRICS, according to the South African government. 

South Africa has already received $5.4 billion from the NDB to improve service delivery in critical areas.  

“We are focused on improving the capacity and competitiveness of our economy, these trade linkages will prove vital to the growth of the local industry. There is therefore a direct relationship between, on the one hand, our reforms in energy, telecommunications and transport, our investment in infrastructure and our efforts to reduce red tape, and, on the other hand, the work underway to increase exports to our BRICS partners,” Ramaphosa recently stated.  

Optimizing Power Generation

By Derrick Silimina

Innocent Gondwe tries to put up a smile as he uses his welding machine anxiously to finish his work in time in order to get paid, before a scheduled power cut.  

But he is unable to fully hide the pain in his eyes caused by the frequent power cuts that are affecting his business, which solely depends on electricity supply from ZESCO, Zambia’s major power utility company. 

After dropping out of school, Gondwe went all out to establish himself as an artisan to earn a living in Kalingalinga, one of the slums in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital. 

“My work demands a stable power supply, but electricity is available just for two hours from 5 a.m. I depend on this work to support my family,” 30-year-old Gondwe told ChinAfrica. 

Frequent power cuts also forced 40-year-old barber Charles Mulenga to shut down his barbershop, which he relied on to make a living and send his children to school. He needed electricity to operate the equipment, but he could get it just for a few hours a day. 

“I had no choice but to close my barbershop after ZESCO, the state-owned power company that supplies almost all of the country’s electricity, recently rolled out a load-shedding schedule which lasts from six to 12 hours at a stretch,” Mulenga noted.  

Similarly, Lucy Mambwe, 32, operator of a hair salon in downtown Lusaka, said, “My business is down due to the unpredictable power supply.”  

Zambia has traditionally depended on the water flows of the mighty Zambezi and Kafue rivers for its hydropower - a clean and renewable resource that now seems unsustainable. 

Chronic drought caused by climate change has lowered water levels to the point where power production is severely curtailed. The water level at the Kariba Dam has been decreasing steadily because of droughts and low inflows from the Zambezi River and its tributaries.  

Electricity output  

Droughts in recent years have cut electricity output by nearly one-third of Zambia’s total installed hydroelectric capacity of 2,380 mw.  

In 2019, water levels in the Kariba Dam plunged to their lowest level since 1996, falling to 10 percent of the normal level. Late last year, the level of usable water in Kariba, tapped by both Zambia and Zimbabwe, stood at 2.68 percent of the normal, according to the Zambezi River Authority, which manages water supply for the two countries and is responsible for the allocation of water used by Zimbabwe’s Kariba South and Zambia’s Kariba North power stations. 

Against this backdrop, Copperbelt Energy Corp. (CEC) recently signed an engineering, procurement and construction contract with Sino hydro Zambia Ltd. for a 34-mw solar power project in Kitwe’s Riverside area. The project will increase the plant’s generating capacity from the existing 1 mw to 34 mw with an annual output of 56.5 gwh. 

The government says the investment is a big step in achieving the country’s goal of ending power cuts, also known as load-shedding, and doubling its electricity generating capacity in order to support the needs of businesses and industries. 

Speaking during the commissioning of the solar power plant, Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema said CEC’s Riverside Solar Plant in Kitwe Town in Copperbelt Province involves the installation of more than 61,320 solar panels and the construction of two transmission lines with the investment of a total of $22 million.  

Sino hydro representative Si Yang said the project is important for optimizing power generation. “We are collaborating on production of solar energy, which is important for the optimization of power generation, the stability of the national power grid, as well as the mitigation of the impact of climate change,” Yang said. 

When the water levels in hydroelectric dams get too low, the electricity provider cuts supply to users – sometimes for 20 hours per day. This has hit the economy hard across all sectors, including metal fabricators, hair salons, and butcher’s shops. Thomas Sipalo, owner of a butcher’s shop in Lusaka’s sprawling Soweto market, sees the impact immediately in his refrigerators. “My beef products go bad every time the power supply is shut down,” he said.  

Diverse energy mix 

Energy experts say droughts caused by climate change are not the only factor behind Zambia’s energy woes; chronic under-investment in hydro projects has also caused problems. So even when there is sufficient rain, the power supply cannot keep up with the demand from mining, manufacturing and agriculture. 

According to the US Agency for International Development, Zambia gets 85 percent of its power from hydro projects. The biggest problem is that the Southern African country is over-dependent on hydro energy, a fuel source that is subject to the vagaries of the weather.  

“The government should invest in other renewable energy sources instead of always depending on the Kariba Dam for power generation,” Mambwe, the hair-salon operator, said 

In this context, the Zambian government has launched a policy aimed at diversifying its energy mix through the implementation of clean energy projects such as solar and wind power.  

For instance, ZESCO Ltd. recently signed contracts worth $548 million with Power Construction Corp. of China to develop three solar photovoltaic power plants, with a combined capacity of 600 mw, in Chibombo District of Central Province and Chirundu and Siavonga districts of Southern Province of the country.  

Other efforts include a recently signed memorandum of understanding and a landmark Joint Development Agreement between Zambia and the United Arab Emirates, aimed at facilitating massive investment in renewable energy in Zambia. 

“With this projected increase in electricity supply, Zambia can achieve faster economic development and create more jobs for our citizens. More players are expressing interest in our plan to diversify the nation’s energy mix, which shall include solar, wind and hydro power,” Hichilema said. 

Reporting from Zambia

Designing the Future

By Derrick Silimina

Since his early high school days, Sean Brown’s immense strength in arithmetic and science subjects has made a career in engineering an obvious choice.

Coming from a humble background, 18-year-old Brown knows that hard work always pays and embracing a vision anchored on academic excellence usually opens numerous opportunities in life. 

“I developed a passion for mechanics in my early childhood. After high school, my dream came true when I enrolled to study engineering so that I could contribute to the development of the sector,” Brown told ChinAfrica. 

Brown is upbeat that as a mechanical engineering student at Northern Technical College (NORTEC) in Ndola of Copperbelt Province, his qualification will remain a prized asset in Zambia as the Southern African country charts a new economic pathway. 

Brown and his two friends represented NORTEC at the prestigious Africa Technology Challenge (ATC) contest sponsored by Chinese company AVIC International.    

Encouraging creativity  

In a bid to support development of technological talents in Africa, AVIC International launched the ATC in June 2014 and sponsored ATC Season VII in 2022 to award the African students who emerged as winners of the contest. 

A corporate social responsibility youth empowerment project of AVIC International, ATC is aimed at identifying skills among the youth through training and competitions focused on the rapidly developing construction industry, particularly in computer-aided design, which involves reading and designing architectural drawings. 

The ATC contest has thus far been held seven times. Under the theme Limitless Innovation, which emphasises harnessing technology to push the boundaries of creativity, the 2022 contest, held in Kenya, attracted a total of over 230 engineering students from Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Egypt, Zambia and Zimbabwe, who were trained and certified in the reading and drafting of construction drawings.  

Diana Busingye of Uganda bagged the first place in the individual category. She said that ATC was a rewarding contest because it built her skills in making designs for the construction sector. 

“My secret of success during the contest was extensive reading as well as listening to my instructors,” said 24-year-old Busingye, who is pursuing a civil engineering degree at the Luyanzi Institute of Technology of Uganda, and was awarded a scholarship to study in China. 

Sean Brown, a student from NORTEC, was also awarded a scholarship to study architectural design in China after emerging as one of the three outstanding participants at the event. 

“During the contest, I learnt how to use Chinese software for technical drawing which is very simple and friendly even for inexperienced students.” 

AVIC International Project Engineering Co. Vice President Xu Fei disclosed that the Chinese firm has so far trained 960 students from 10 countries, and as a result, nine institutions were awarded design orders amounting to $500,000. 

Skills development 

Xu emphasised that the experience gained by AVIC International places it in a very unique position to collaborate with African governments to build technical, vocational education and training (TVET) capacity through the construction and upgrading of the colleges as well as the capacity building of their staff. 

Alex Simumba, director for vocational education and training at Zambia’s Ministry of Technology and Science, said the competition was a great platform for Zambian students, adding the country’s participation in such high-level competitions is in line with the government’s focus on making TVET a means of livelihood for the youth and the huge investment it has made in the state-of-the-art equipment in technical colleges.  

NORTEC Acting Principal Martin Kasonso said the win was a plus for the institution as it would help to position the college as a centre for national competitions by building capacity through various upgrades to enable NORTEC to meet the international standards that are required to hold such international competitions. 

“Such competitions would help NORTEC in coordinating with other engineering institutions to allow students to demonstrate their skills in different ways and help to position the college both at regional and international level,” Kasonso added. 

During the seventh edition of the ATC, NORTEC was the only higher learning institution representing Zambia in the young engineer’s contest after beating other technical institutions at national level. As a result, the Zambian team has been certified in reading and drafting of construction drawings. 

On the other hand, Ezekiel Machogu, cabinet secretary for the Ministry of Education of Kenya, said the East African country supports the ATC because it is a vehicle for raising awareness and enlightening students about various opportunities that may come from skills development. 

“The ATC affirms Kenya’s belief that instilling technological skills in our youth is the key to spurring our country to progress and prosperity,” Machogu said during a recent ATC event co-organised by AVIC International and Kenya’s Ministry of Education in Nairobi. 

Meanwhile, Zhou Meifen, cultural counsellor at the Chinese Embassy in Kenya, said that the ATC involves skills training and practical knowledge transfer and aims to improve the youth’s technical skills through training and competition as a way of reducing unemployment in Kenya and the rest of Africa. 

AVIC International has upgraded 144 vocational training institutions across Kenya and trained 1,500 teachers and over 50,000 students as well as support staff. 

The projects included constructing “three accesses and one levelling” (access to water, electricity and road, and levelled ground), campsite construction, and equipment relocation. 

It has also helped to repair and upgrade damaged local roads, build water conservancy facilities, share clean water sources with the community, and renovate and construct school buildings and other community facilities for free. 

Other China-based companies that are actively engaged in corporate social responsibility projects in Africa include China Resources, which tops the list measuring Chinese companies by social responsibility, followed by China Huadian Corp., and Sinopec Group, according to a recent report recently released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Reporting from Zambia 

Sisters nurture children, teach mothers parenting skills

 

By Derrick Silimina

When Anabel Mwamba gave birth to her first child in 2005, she lacked parenting skills to assess developmental milestones and determine how her baby's life would unfold.

The 36-year-old single mother of four knows how tough it is to feed and take good care of a baby amid socio economic hardships.

"As a teen mother, it's not easy to provide adequate nutrition and care for a child. When I had my first child at the age of 18, life was unbearable, especially after my boyfriend deserted me for another woman," Mwamba told Global Sisters Report.

Zambia, like many developing countries, still grapples with teen pregnancies. Many girls, particularly from lower-income environments, become mothers at a young age and, in the process, often deny their babies a dignified life.

Nearly 30% of adolescent girls in Zambia become pregnant by the age of 18, according to the 2018 Zambia Demographic Health Survey. This high rate of teenage pregnancy remains a significant concern and reduces the opportunities for the women to actualize their full potential and entangles them in a perpetual circle of ignorance, poverty and inequality.

Thanks to St. Dominic's Mission Hospital, then called Kavu Rural Health Centre, Mwamba has learned parenting skills that have helped her raise her two youngest children, with some positive effects for the two older children as well. With her third child, born in 2015, she learned the importance of giving birth in a healthcare facility.

The hospital, which was upgraded into a standard hospital from a clinic, was founded by the Dominican Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1993 in response to the community's need for quality and holistic health care.

Mwamba's rural community lacks adequate healthcare facilities, but she also learned the importance of taking her children to "under-5" clinics for children younger than 5 years old.

Mwamba received assistance through the Integrated Mother and Babies Course initiative, one of the early childhood development projects courtesy of a Conrad N. Hilton Foundation-sponsored program known as "Strengthening the Capacity of Religious Women in Early Childhood Development" (SCORE-ECD). (The Foundation also funds Global Sisters Report.) The project is coordinated by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and is being implemented in Malawi, Zambia, Kenya and Ghana.

In Zambia, as part of a holistic approach to early child development, SCORE-ECD project manager Sr. Christabel Kazembe says her scope of work involves managing community health volunteers and "lead mothers," under the supervision of nurses or sister master-trainers, to execute the program. Through group sessions and home visits, more than 1,600 mothers from the Copperbelt, Central, Luapula and Eastern provinces have benefited from the early childhood development sessions.

"My fieldwork involves doing some complementary activities, such as cooking and teaching the mothers different methods of food preparations using local available foods, encouraging mothers to deliver from the hospital, taking children to under-5 clinics, early stimulation (making toys for the baby using local available materials such as bottles and rags), and maintaining the surroundings clean, among others," she said.

The sisters' workshops cover nutrition, early childhood development, identifying depressive behaviors, mood regulation, maternal mental health integration, and strengthening of couple relationships, among other topics.

Kazembe, who belongs to the Sisters of Mercy in the Mansa Diocese, said, "We desire to live as spiritual sisters of our fellow believers, through radiating the compassionate heart of Christ."

She emphasized that her congregation, which now has 65 sisters, was founded in 1977 to assist in the Mansa Diocese (in the Luapula province in northern Zambia) with pastoral work, Catholic schools and Catholic mission hospitals.

"In addition to these, we are also engaged in developmental works of uplifting the standard of living of people in the diocese through agriculture and social work, thereby carrying out integral evangelization of needy people," she said.

Teaching mothers how to care for their children and ensuring they have adequate nutrition is an important part of the congregation's mission.

Psychologically, while no two children develop on the exact same timeline, there are time periods in which major developmental milestones are reached that can determine how a child's life unfolds.

According to a 2004 study published in Paediatrics & Child Health, pregnant women and new mothers in developing countries are affected by depression and other mental health disorders, which can adversely affect breastfeeding, mother-child bonding, parenting quality and the child's overall development.

"I have really benefited a lot from this [SCORE-ECD] program, such that my kids are now growing up healthy," Mwamba said, calling the program "informative and helpful."

For Exhilda Musonda, a mother of five from Ndola who has also benefited from the project, "before our parish sisters and lead mothers taught me how to prepare local nutritious foods and the importance of maternal health care, my kids' health was bad," she said. "But thanks to their timely help, I am now able to provide adequate care and nutritious food to my children thanks to the Integrated Mother/Baby Course that I was privileged to undergo."

Anastasia Nkandu, a lead mother who is in charge of more than 10 caregivers in an area of Ndola, stressed that the program is indeed changing lives in her community. "Most mothers here lack knowledge, especially teen caregivers, but after our input with basic livelihood skills, they are now able to take good care of their children and families responsibly, thereby adding value to their well-being."

In a bid to ensure that children under 2 years old thrive in a sustainable culture of care and support, Kazembe further noted that early childhood development is vital to any child's well-being. Most of Kazembe's work includes health and nutrition, education and social protection of young children, but she also focuses on their physical, cognitive, linguistic, social and emotional development.

The project caters to the most vulnerable children ages infant to 5 years old, with a particular focus on children from infancy to 2 years old, some of whom are disabled and/or have HIV/AIDS, Kazembe said. The program across all dioceses of the four provinces is making a difference in Zambia's remote communities, she said.

"Helping people in different ways has really helped me to radiate God's compassion to his people as our congregation mission states," she said. "By reaching out to those people, I feel I am fulfilling my duty as a Sister of Mercy. Therefore, I feel my congregation's mission and my own mission is being fulfilled."