• FINANCE Minister Felix Mutati shakes hands with Germany ambassador to Zambia Achim Burkart after a signing ceremony for grants amounting to K107.5 million Euros in Lusaka yesterday. Picture By CHILA NAMAIKO

By CHILA NAMAIKO –
GERMANY has given Zambia a grant amounting 107.5 million Euros to be injected in key areas directly contributing to poverty reduction programmes among the citizens within the context of the Seventh National Development Plan (7NDP) and the Zambia Plus Agenda.
The money is part of Germany’s 2016 commitment to support Zambia in the sectors of water, sanitation and water resource management, to support the decentralisation process and to improve the management of public finance.
Other areas of support will be fostering civil society participation in political decision-making processes and enhancing access to justice.
Speaking at a signing ceremony in Lusaka yesterday, Germany Ambassador to Zambia Achim Burkart said his country had been one of the biggest bilateral donors to Zambia and that since 1964, the total volume of technical and financial cooperation had increased to more than one billion Euros.
Mr Burkart said Germany was also supporting the expansion of renewable energies in Zambia, engaging in the training of smallholder farmers and scaling up the nutrition initiative.
“I am particularly happy about the current portfolio of German development cooperation as it links up perfectly with the new 7NDP,” he said.
Following the launch of the Cluster Advisory Group which would manage the implementation of the 7NDP, Mr Burkart said that all areas of German cooperation played a key role within the five strategic clusters of the plan.
This, Mr Burkart said, was true for the targeted sectors.
He was happy that his country’s development cooperation aligned well with the development needs of Zambia’s national Vision of 2030 of becoming a middle-incomer State.
Mr Burkart called for more prudent fiscal management in combination with systematic improvements of the domestic revenue basis, which he said was key for the future of Zambia.
He said the new motto for the years to come should be ‘Implementation matters’ and that Germany was committed to ensure Zambia realised more development.
Mr Mutati, who signed on behalf of  Zambian Government, said the funds would be utilised for decentralised development through district infrastructure, citing bus stations and markets which would get five million Euros.
The minister said the urban water supply and sanitation in Chipata would access up to eight million Euros programme while reduction of malnutrition in rural areas was eight million Euros.
The Get-Fit-Zambia programme would get 31 million Euros, while 18,500,000 Euros was for suitable electricity supply, southern division, as the ecological urban development Lusaka sanitation programme was given 18,000,000 Euros.
Mr Mutati cited other sectors as the strengthening of local governance in Zambia phase-III which was allocated seven million Euros, and the national rural water supply and sanitation programme phase-11 with 12 million Euros.
The minister said the financial support signified the cordial relations that existed between the two countries.
He said decentralisation of local governance remained at the centre of President Edgar Lungu’s Government and that support to water and sanitation would assist in increasing access to and improving water supply in selected urban and rural areas.
Mr Mutati reiterated Government’s commitment to attaining a greener environment through implementing and streamlining climate change initiatives.