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Showing all content in Zambia
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Blog post
Increasing tariffs to prevent another electricity crisis in Zambia
Zambia’s state-owned power utility company, ZESCO, is consistently struggling to meet demand, plunging Zambia into one electricity crisis after another. The Government of Zambia’s acceptance of ZESCO’s application to increase tariffs is a step in the right direction. Access to reliable power remains a problem across sub-Saharan Africa. The latest data from the World...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Civil service reform and performance management in Ghana and Zambia since 1990
Both Zambia and Ghana have tried repeatedly since 1990 to link civil servants’ performance to incentives by introducing performance management systems. Despite these efforts, there have been no cases in either country where individual performance has been successfully and sustainably linked to rewards or sanctions. To understand patterns of individual performance,...
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Blog post
Do civil service performance incentives work: Evidence from Ghana and Zambia
“The problem with government is that bureaucrats don’t have any incentive to perform well.” If you’ve spent much time working in or with governments in low- or middle-income countries, you’ve almost certainly heard this lament many times – and maybe even said it yourself. The idea is simple, intuitive, and powerful: People aren’t performing well; people...
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Publication - Working Paper
Civil service reform and performance management in Ghana and Zambia since 1990
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Blog post
The social cost of electricity price increases in Zambia
The Zambian electricity sector has struggled with frequent power outages since 2016, largely due to declining generation capacity at the main hydropower stations at Kariba. With the worsening drought in recent months, the power deficits have increased, forcing the state power utility ZESCO to announce increased load shedding of up to 15 hours per day in most residential...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Staving off the hungry season in Zambia: Testing a simple and cost-effective approach
Multiple countries in sub-Saharan African experience seasonal extreme food insecurity, a phenomenon in some cases referred to as the “hungry season.” In Zambia, the context of this project, recent studies suggest that between 60-80% of rural households run out of food before the annual harvest. Seasonal food insecurity has serious impacts on health and wellbeing....
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Publication - Policy Brief
Barriers to tax compliance for medium, small, and micro enterprises (MSMEs) in Zambia
This study examines the barriers that contribute to the low levels of tax compliance among MSMEs in Zambia. The brief presents findings from an original survey conducted among 1390 respondents in 52 market hubs in Lusaka and Central province of Zambia. The researcher finds a tax compliance rate of on average 30 percent among these MSMEs. The findings reveal...
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Blog post
Assessing sectoral linkages in the Zambian economy
The Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ) has since 1965, endeavoured to minimise the country’s dependence on copper mining through a melange of policies and incentives in the agricultural, industrial and services sectors in its six previous national development plans. In 2018, GRZ launched its 7th National Development Plan (GRZ, 2017) that re-emphasised the need to...
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Publication - Policy Brief
Assessing inter-sectoral linkages in the Zambian economy: The case of the agro-processing subsector
Although the diversification of the economy has been on the national policy agenda for a long time, Zambia has continued to remain overly dependent on the export of copper for foreign currency earnings and public revenue This study examines the way different sectors in the economy interact to identify policy interventions that can promote the diversification of the...
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Project
The impact of career opportunities on aspirations and educational outcomes
Issues surrounding recruiting and motivating a high-performing public workforce are central to efforts to improve state effectiveness. The research team conducted a national recruitment experiment in Zambia - embedded in the 2012 launch of a new cadre of community health workers (CHW) - the Community Health Assistant (CHA). In contrast to volunteer CHWs, CHAs are government...