State-Business Relations

State-Business Relations in Zambia: A Focus on the Mining Sector

The mining industry in Zambia has traditionally been the pinnacle of economic development, since independence in 1964. Proceeds from the sale of mainly copper and, to a lesser extent, cobalt have been applied towards financing socio-economic development. However, the mining industry which is mainly dominated by copper (and cobalt) as undergone 'troughs' and 'booms' depending on the prevailing domestic policies and economic conditions in the global market. Worthy of mentioning is the fact that Zambia has had four different types of 'economic dispensations' since attainment of independence from Great Britain.

The study will seek to find how SBRs in the Zambian mining industry have developed over time, and to what extent these have affected the development of the mining sector. The Zambian mining sector is now embedded in the private sector and thus the Government is expected to play an 'enabling' or 'facilitative' role in the relations.

How State-Business Relations Influence Fiscal Policy and Budgeting in Zambia

In this paper, we discuss the formal and informal role non-state actors actually play or can play in the budgetary process at every stage of the budgetary process to influence the adoption of pro-poor fiscal management in Zambia. We envisage producing and estimating, subject to data availability, the extent to which non-state actors have influenced budgeting through formal submissions to the Ministry of Finance and National Planning (MONFP) and Parliament, and further how informal lobbying has impacted on the budget and government expenditure programmes. This analysis, we believe, will produce political-economic information and tools that will provide recommendation for improving understanding of therole non-state actors play in the design and implementation of fiscal policies and government expenditure and how their role can be enhanced to influence adoption of pro-poor fiscal policies (taxation and public expenditure) in the country.