EVERY business and nation creates business or economic developmental strategies to achieve desired level of economic growth in order to address specific socio-economic challenges such as high poverty levels and unemployment.
Indeed, anyone can create strategies but not everyone can successfully implement the strategies so created.
This is true of corporate businesses and national economies including Zambia.
The purpose of this article series is to present a very simplified discourse on why nation’s like Zambia make economic developmental strategies.
The discourse will further look at a model socio-economic developmental strategy- Democratic Developmentalism (DD) and the Agricultural Development Led Industrialization (ADLI) that were prescribed by the World Bank for Ethiopia as a case study and starting point ( for later tailored implementation in other developing countries).
The discourse will further look at bottlenecks that nation’s like Zambia face in implementing economic developmental strategies and how they could overcome them.
In the last six and half years, this platform has looked at aspects of Ethiopia’s developmental strategies particularly in the Apparel and Fashion Industry.
This discourse is therefore a build-up on overall economic developmental strategies that Ethiopia has been able to create and implement over the years.
Hopefully, Zambian Economic Managers, Policy Makers and Corporate leaders would pick a leaf from Ethiopia’s success story.
Do countries like Zambia face challenges in creating and implementing economic development programmes, strategies and subsequent action plans?
Oh Yes, they do!
From my research in the last few years, most often times, these nations including Zambia make economic developmental programmes, economic strategies and action plans but when you go on the ground, you will discover that the programmes, strategies and action plans are poorly thought out!
In some cases, I have learnt through hands on research that even institutions that are meant to work on the same developmental programmes and strategies like Zambia Agricultural Research institute (ZARI) Zambia Bureau of Standards (ZABS) and Zambia Export Growers Association( ZEGA) for example, face bottlenecks of failing to communicate and get along with each other, role ambiguity and so forth!
In other cases, these nations copy strategies and action plans which can never work out in Zambia.
In other cases, the problem is poorly defined!
In other cases, the Policy Makers have failed to identify what the real problem is and they end up prescribing a “me too strategy” to a Zambian problem which the Economic Managers or Policy Makers don’t even understand!
That may sound harsh or crude but research indicates the Primary Dealership Model (PDM), Bank of Zambia (BoZ) Targeted Medium Term Refinancing Facility (TMTRF), the Zesco loadshedding black-outs among others are typical examples.
Think of it, on 20 August 2019, former Energy minister Matthew Nkhuwa said Government was looking at the possibility of creating a canal to tap water from the Congo River to the source of the Zambezi River.
Mr. Nkhuwa said a meeting was expected to be held on Wednesday 21 August 2019, with then Vice President Inonge Wina, Zambezi River Authority, Zesco and the ministry of Water Development to look at the possibility of tapping water from the Congo River.
He said President Edgar Lungu and his Zimbabwean counterpart Emerson Munangangwa would then be engaged to talk to the President of Congo.
Besides the low water levels in the Kariba Dam, you will note that the real problem here was that Zesco was owing Independent Power Producers (IPP’s) like Maamba Collieries and Lusemfwa Hydro Electric Power Limited hundreds of thousands of United States dollars in unpaid power supply agreements and therefore they had shut down production.
What does digging a canal from the Congo basin have to do with the real problem- Zesco’s indebtedness or the economy deliberately failing to implement cost reflective fuel and electricity tariffs?
On the other hand, I have come to learn that local large Corporate Businesses and other organisations have in the last three years invested millions in United States dollars without having a basic understanding of the underlying strategy let alone the nature of the project or business that the institution has invested in!
That’s hair-raising, isnt it?
I have come across credible evidence of the above institution’s investment with my own eyes!
On the other hand, in the recent past years, Zambia has created developmental plans and economic strategies such as the Zambia Plus, and the recent 2020 to 2023 Economic Recovery Programme.
These have all been well intended programmes to foster the country’s socio-economic development.
However, it hasn’t been all rosy for Zambia.
There have been hiccups that have way laid these well intended processes.
The big question on every reader’s and Zambian citizen’s mind is what happens to these economic development programmes and strategies?
Are citizens able to relate and understand why these programmes and strategies are even created?
What has happened to the 2020 to 2023 Economic Recovery Programme?
If by any chance, it has died, by the recent change in political regime that occurred on 12 August 2021, doesn’t the country still need an economic recovery programme anymore?
In the Ethiopian context the DD is a political regime which supports the execution of the nation’s development strategy.
The DD and the ADLI constitute a complementary set which stipulates the political and the economic aspect of the economic developmental strategy respectively.
This means Ethiopia is executing a two-in-one industrialization strategy – developing the agricultural sector to a viable commercial sector while simultaneously developing the manufacturing and export business sector
For now, as a starting point for this article series, it is important for Economic Managers, Policy Makers and Corporate Business Leaders to note that Corporate Business and Economic strategies don’t just work out by themselves, there is onerous task of preparing the preconditions for and removing the obstacles and bottlenecks to enable the strategies to work out.
Look out for another exciting article on Ethiopia’s case study on why and how the nation created the developmental strategies, the preconditions and how it has been overcoming the obstacles and bottlenecks to economic strategy development.
For comments e-mail: ntumbograndy@yahoo.com Mobile +260977403113 +260955403113
The author is the Managing Consultant at G. N Grant Business Consultant, a Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA), a Master of Business Administration (MBA) holder, with a Specialism in Strategic Planning, and a candidate for the Herriot Watt University (Scotland) Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)
