Seminar participants call for enhanced partnership between Zambia and IMF

• Author: Simon Willson
• Position: IMF External Relations Department
• Pages: 161-163

Page 161

Zambian Finance Minister Katele Kalumba, speaking at seminars held with the IMF in Lusaka in April, urged representatives of Zambia’s civil society groups to make the country’s partnership with the IMF more effective by participating in efforts to identify solutions for the country’s economic challenges. Kalumba said there could be no talk of host-country “ownership” of an economic program without such participation and called for both an exchange of ideas and a leveraging of Zambia’s relationship with the IMF “for the ultimate benefit of Zambia.”

The seminars, the latest in a series the IMF has sponsored in Africa, are intended to expand the IMF’s dialogue with legislators and civil society. Similar seminars were held in Cameroon and Nigeria last year. The format of each seminar avoided lengthy presentations, so as to allow ample time for open and informal discussion.

Forging partnerships

In the first seminar in Zambia, on April 26, 40 members of the National Assembly heard keynote remarks from Speaker Amusaa Mwanamwamba, who said he hoped the event would explain to parliamentarians not only the tangible, material benefits but also the social benefits that IMF-supported policies would bring to ordinary Zambians. Kalumba, referring to the IMF as a major partner in Zambia’s postindependence economic policies, noted that the legislators had had little contact with the IMF and that they had little opportunity to gain an understanding of its objectives and strategies. He observed that most of Zambia’s achievements would have been difficult to attain without the IMF’s support, but that there were negative perceptions about the IMF because it had not done enough to explain its role and actions. Kalumba urged thePage 163 parliamentarians, most of whom were ranking members of the National Assembly’s specialist committees, to take advantage of the opportunity offered by the meeting “to begin forging a working partnership directly with the IMF.” This would enable them to obtain the necessary background to make informed interventions on behalf of the people they lead. Discussions followed on the background to and the way forward in Zambia’s relationship with the IMF, the importance of good governance for growth and equity, and the social dimensions of adjustment and reform.

In a resolution adopted at the end of the seminar, the parliamentarians called for the National Assembly’s...