Zambia overview
Zambia ranks among the countries with the highest levels of poverty and inequality globally. Poverty reached 60% of the population in 2022, worsened by limited job creation and declining labour earnings.
Zambia is a copper-dependent, resource-rich economy yet the benefits of its global exports flow to a small elite of skilled urban workers rather than creating opportunities for the many. The reliance on mining exports has left the poorest further behind; around 64% of the population lives on less than $2.15 a day, and Zambia ranks among the most unequal countries in the world. World Bank data put youth informal employment at 96.7% in 2022, while about 29.4% of young people aged 15–24 were neither employed nor in education or training.
In the Copperbelt Province – the heart of the country’s mining industry – limited diversification and underinvestment leave many households dependent on informal, unreliable, low-income activities, such as petty trading and charcoal burning. Agriculture and service industries employ a large share of the population. For young people who cannot find paid employment, entrepreneurship is often presented as an alternative. But starting a sustainable business requires more than entrepreneurial motivation. Young entrepreneurs frequently face constraints around capital, technology, markets and business networks.
Women are disproportionately affected by barriers to employment. They often shoulder the caregiving burden in their households, and with fewer employment opportunities, many rely on unstable piecework to pay bills and feed their families. As a result, female-headed households experience much higher poverty rates. Between 2010 and 2022, poverty among female-headed households increased, widening the gap with male-headed households. These challenges illustrate the urgent need for targeted investment in women to gain practical trade skills and pathways to financial independence, enabling them to better support their families.
A lack of income generation opportunities drives large sections of the population to break the law and become incarcerated. Most of the 24,000 inmates (World Prison Brief, 2022) held in Zambian correctional facilities come from the most marginalised and disadvantaged sectors of society, often with reduced formal education opportunities, low literacy and numeracy levels resulting in fewer legitimate opportunities for income generation. When prisoners are released those same barriers to employment exist.
How we are helping
Private-sector development and economic diversification are key to moving the population from low-productivity employment toward higher-productivity activities. Agriculture, Energy, Tourism, Construction and Small Business Development provide potential opportunities for employment.
Working with vulnerable groups, including youth, women and ex-offenders, our projects in the Central and Copperbelt provinces provide trainees, including youth, women and ex-offenders , with trades skills and the business knowledge they need to move into formal work or start their own enterprises in key economic sectors. Having an opportunity to work through a learned trade has a significant role in rehabilitating ex-inmates back into society and is vital to reducing reoffending. Adapted training timetables enable trainees to fit household and family commitments around training.
Our partners
Eliashib Restoration Organisation
Eliashib Restoration Organisations is a registered non-governmental organisation based in Mushili area of Ndola in the Copperbelt Province. Their Women’s Centre is run by a small group of committed and passionate women who seek to empower women in their local communities. Eliashib has developed a programme of training that meets the female trainees needs in terms of adapted timetables and child care support so they can fully commit to their training without worrying about household and family commitments. Eliashib ’s expertise not only lies in the delivery of economic empowerment programmes; they also provide support in the form of psycho-social wellbeing and counselling to women within their community. The impact of their projects goes far beyond that of the individual supported. Eliashib recognise that by working with and empowering women, they create stronger financial resilience at household level which in turns benefits the entire family.
Prisoners' Future Foundation
Prisoners’ Future Foundation (PFF) is a registered non-governmental organisation based in Kabwe, but with a reach to correctional centres across Zambia. Staffed and governed by individuals with lived experience of the Zambian prison system, PFF is uniquely placed to assess and address the needs to the prison population. They support pathways back into civilian life, starting within prisons where skills training is delivered to inmates as they come to end of a custodial sentence. Post release support continues through a comprehensive package focussing on rehabilitation and reintegration during what can be a difficult transition period. This package of support is key to reducing rates of recidivism and providing trainees with the best possible opportunity to return to their communities and secure work.
