•LOCALS will form committees to enforce the fishing ban.

By CHUSA SICHONE –

BEING a selfless leader requires one to be mindful of the welfare of the people he or she rules and come up with a plan aimed at addressing the various challenges they face.
The blueprint must be able to identify problems that have befallen a certain locality, spell out ways to tackle them and the time frame to do so.
The Chisunka chiefdom in Mansa District of Luapula Province can be described as a sleeping giant, which is endowed with a lot of natural resources.
Chisunka chiefdom boasts of having good rainfall, abundant land and water resources.  It has minerals such as the high-grade Manganese and natural resources like the Musonda Falls, which is a potential tourist attraction and can also be used for hydro-power generation.
However, despite being gifted in that manner, most of the people in Chisunka chiefdom still live in abject poverty.
To awaken the sleeping giant and turn Chisunka chiefdom into a bread basket for Mansa District and beyond, Chief Chisunka VI of the Ushi people, with support from stakeholders, decided to develop the Chisunka Chiefdom Development Strategic Plan to run from 2014 to 2018.
The inaugural Chisunka Chiefdom Development Strategic Plan was initiated with technical and financial support from the United States Agency for International Development(USAID) and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief through support to the HV/AIDS Response in Zambia II project.
“From the time I took over as your chief, I have been questioning myself whether we are doing justice to ourselves to live in poverty while we are in this land which our forefathers strategically chose.
“They saw immense potential that to date, we have only harnessed to a minimal extent. I have now and then asked myself whether really there is nothing we can do to turn our situation around, to make this chiefdom an example of developmental excellence,” Chief Chisunka said in the plan’s  Foreword.
Chief Chisunka anticipates that such a document will provide much-needed guidance to the chiefdom in its endeavour for sustainable development.
The Development Strategic Plan embodies the Chisunka chiefdom’s vision to be developed with improved standards of living.
That aspiration will be realised through the mandates of effective leadership, efficient and community-inclusive planning, timely policy development and implementation, lobbying, advocacy as well as resource mobilisation.
Ten  strategic areas from which strategic issues, objectives and core strategies were derived. The 10 are: agriculture and fisheries, mining, education, health and HIV/AIDS, women and youth affairs, infrastructure development, ntrepreneurship, culture and traditional affairs.
Others include land, heritage sites and natural resources and chiefdom management and coordination. The plan integrates HIV/AIDS and gender as cross-cutting developmental issues that need to be addressed across each of the eight strategic areas.
In Chisunka chiefdom, agriculture, which is mostly rain-fed, is the primary economic sector and the major crops grown are cassava and maize.
It has, however, been observed that while agriculture is the primary economic sector in Chisunka chiefdom, the area has poor agricultural productivity and inadequate food security.
To rectify that problem, the plan recommends organisation of orientation workshops for farmers in the chiefdom to improve their knowledge in modern farming methods, building a communal barn in each village, establishing Food Reserve Unit, lobbying for more agricultural extension officers.
Other issues include  promoting irrigation crop production, establishing an agriculture mechanisation institute, increasing effectiveness of agriculture cooperatives, promoting animal restocking and lobbying for more timely
supply of agriculture inputs.
On fisheries, the depletion of fish stocks in the chiefdom’s rivers and dams requires educating the chiefdom leaders on key regulations Governing productive and sustainable fishing, establishing a fishing regulation enforcing committee in each zone that contains a river or dam.
Improving public awareness on the importance of abiding to fishing regulations, lobby stakeholders to support the establishment of viable fish ponds and advocate for increased engagement of fishing officers in fish restocking.
The fishing industry in Chisunka chiefdom has been affected by the depletion of fish stocks. The chiefdom’s rivers like the Bembe, Lufubu and Luongo, have seen their fish populations fall drastically as people have continued to disregard the Government fish ban from December 1 to February 28.
The other contributing factor to the fish depletion is the use of retrogressive fishing methods such as mosquito nets whose small holes catch small fish before they can reproduce.
To address the enadequate exploitation of the chiefdom’s mineral wealth and potential, the plan recommends lobbying Government for increased visibility of the chiefdom to investors, increasing investor confidence through documenting its desired level of engagement with the private sector and establishing a mining stakeholder directory.
Others are documenting corporate social responsibility (CSR) for mining investors in the chiefdom, advocating for road development to mineral-rich areas, increasing output of electrical power to the chiefdom and accounting for revenues accrued by the chiefdom from mining activities.
Chisunka chiefdom grapples with enadequate primary and secondary schools. To rectify that, it has been recommended that there be advocacy for the expansion of the two existing primary schools and construction of two more and one secondary school.
A percentage of income derived from the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR),should be directed towards the construction and expansion of schools. A portion of the CSR support from the mining sector should also be invested in the construction of teachers’ accommodation to address the shortage.
The enadequate housing shortage can also be improved by advocating the construction of one teacher’s house at each existing chiefdom school and lobbying for the electrification of those houses.
The high illiteracy levels and poor education standards  in the chiefdom can be sorted out by working with the Ministry of Education to increase the availability and affordability of education, establishing community-based adult literacy programmes for women and men.
Supporting establishment of libraries and skills centres in the chiefdom and attracting qualified teachers and improving teacher retention.
On the high incidence of early marriages among girl children in Chisunka chiefdom, the plan recommends the enactment of policies that make it compulsory for the chiefdom’s families to enrol and maintain children and dependants in school.
Identify children whose parents cannot sponsor their education and ensure they remain in school, increase awareness on the importance of girl-child education, ensure the enforcement of decrees on early marriage and integrate appropriate and effective HIV/AIDS messages in schools.
In the area of health, the chiefdom faces lack of a hospital and has enadequate health centres, limited accommodation for health care staff as well as poor staff retention, high levels of new HIV infections among adults and children and poor access to and low uptake of HIV-related services.
The Strategic Plan has outlined several recommendations aimed at correcting the mentioned problems.
Realising that women in Chisunka chiefdom do not participate the governance, economic and developmental activities as the men do, it has been recommended that a quota system for women’s participation in the chiefdom governance structure be introduced.
Also, reviewing the chiefdom’s gender norms and attitudes, promoting gender equity and increasing women’s status by promoting and supporting education and access to microfinance opportunities as well as informing families about the advantages of educating girls.
The Gender Based Violence (GBV) levels currently on the upswing can be tackled, according to the plan, by increasing awareness on its detrimental effects, building capacity of traditional leaders, customary law courts and police in dealing with the vice, instituting a by law to ban GBV and rewarding villages with the least cases.
Chisunka chiefdom has rich social, cultural and traditional tenets and belief systems that guide the way its people think and behave as well as the way the leadership of the chiefdom governs. The chiefdom has, however, lost many of its traditional and cultural values besides maintaining some harmful norms.
It has been recommended that the harmful social, cultural and traditional practices, beliefs and attitudes be modified or discarded, including through by laws and community sensitisation, enforce obedience to modified cultural practices that discourage GBV, HIV drivers, stigma and discrimination.
The Intestate Succession Act and the Anti-GBV Act must be domesticated in the chiefdom and orient traditional leaders on effective ways of addressing harmful cultural norms and practices in the area.
The depletion and destruction of natural resources and heritage sites can be countered through the formulation of guidelines and by laws, empowering key traditional leaders, strengthening village action groups on resource management and creating public private partnerships to ensure sustainable protection.
The Chisunka chiefdom lacks functional entrepreneurial or business cooperatives, bank and banking service, has inadequate business skills among micro and small business operators.
The 2014 to 2018  Chisunka Chiefdom Development Strategic Plan is indeed a well-intended document, which if implemented to the latter, will definitely spur development in the area.