Zambia – November 2005

The federation process in Zambia continues to spread like veld fire; all the urban areas in Zambia have at least one saving scheme. With the federation now active in all the urban areas, the greatest challenge lies in consolidating and strengthening the federation process in Zambia. As the federation process has dramatically expanded, the partnership between  People ‘s Process on Housing and Poverty and the Zambia Homeless and Poor People’s federation is faced with a daunting challenge of meeting the expectations of more than 15 thousand families that have been mobilized. The work at hand is to continue to expand the network and to forge strategic partnerships with other stakeholders in the country as well as to cement the understanding of existing groups through more regular exchanges among groups.

 Two of our regional federations, Lusaka and Livingstone have started negotiating for land to do pilot projects in which we will demonstrate how Local authorities and the poor people can collaborate in either infrastructure provision or housing development. In anticipation for a pilot project in Zambia the partnership has scheduled two enumeration exercises and house model exercises for both Lusaka and Livingstone for  early January and February. The two enumerations will also precede an Official Launch of the federation process in Zambia; the official launch will take place in March 2006.

Despite having managed to build a national movement of the poor countrywide, the partnership between the federation and People’s Process faces a number of challenges. Perhaps the most critical challenge is that of strengthening and consolidating an exploding process in the face of limited resources. The second challenge is meeting the expectations of thousand and thousands of people who have been in the federation process for the past four years in anticipation of some change in their lives. Local authorities on the other hand are putting pressure on the partnership to deliver since we are one of the few organizations seeking to address the housing needs of the poorest of the poor in Zambia. Of importance, however, is that the partnership between People’s process and the federation has managed to build a very strong and powerful national federation movement in Zambia. The Government and local authorities have since recognized the federation process as viable and sustainable way of communities dealing with issues of poverty and homelessness in Zambia. The Lusaka and Livingstone local authorities have expressed interest in working with the federation in their slum upgrading programmes. This makes the Federation a key player in the development sector in Zambia.