Suchergebnisse

The supremacy of international trade as an engine of growth has regained its pre-eminence on the development agenda. Thus far external trade has been accepted as not only an engine of growth but also as a critical element of any strategy to satisfy domestic aggregate demand and fight poverty. For Zambia, international trade relations are very important given the country's dependence on imports for the much-needed manufactured goods and earnings from the export of primary commodities. Within the global context, there is compelling evidence to show that most poor countries at the behest of the Bretton Woods Institutions are pursuing export-led policies within the framework of neo-liberalism. However, most of the least developed countries like Zambia are faced with declining terms of trade, export barriers and ambiguous trade protocols within the regional and multilateral trading systems (MTS). This results in chronic current account deficits and balance of payments (BOP) crises that militate against development in poor countries. As an interim measure to close the BOP deficits, the poor countries are usually forced to borrow domestically and externally with the resultant accumulation of huge domestic and external debt stocks. Most of the external debt poses adverse economic effects on the borrowing country given the austere conditionality and 'shock therapies' that donors attach to the loans. ; The problem of unsustainable external debts continues to be a major source of concern among the civil society, cooperating partners, government and indeed other stakeholders. With Zambia's qualification to the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) completion point in April 2005, the external debt relief and cancellation are likely to significantly reduce both Zambia's external debt stock and debt service amounts, other things being equal. However, the unfair external trade regime at the international level threatens the sustainability of the external debt stock as it generates Balance of Payment (BOP) crises that require mitigation mainly through external borrowing. Thus, the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR)' s Debt and Trade Project is concerned that the relationship among debt, trade and poverty is a very important factor and must be explored and made part of the holistic policy environment, which leads to sustainable development. Therefore, this study was commissioned by the JCTR's Debt and Trade Project to explore Zambia's trade situation. Among the focus questions addressed are the following: What is Zambia's trade situation like? How are the trade policies and negotiation positions formulated? Is there a linkage between trade and investment in Zambia? What are the main trade protocols that the country has so far ratified? What is the likely impact of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) on Zambia? Furthermore the paper sought to define clearly the link between trade and debt and how these impact on the Zambian people. The main conclusions drawn from the study are that: First, there is a very strong linkage among trade, debt and poverty. Second, Zambia's comparative or competitive advantage in the non-traditional exports (NTEs) lies mainly in the Agriculture sector. Third, the full trade reciprocity with the European Union (EU) will be very costly for Zambia irrespective of how the issue is looked at. Further the paper recommends that there is urgent need to lobby for fair trade if debt sustainability and poverty reduction are to be a reality in Zambia. In this vein, there is need for closer cooperation among government, civil society organisations and other non-state actors. Moreover, the JCTR has a specific role to play in the advocacy for more just trade that will lead to poverty reduction and sustainable human development.

In spite of extensive trade reforms, markets for goods and services are not fully integrated across countries. Less appreciated also is that product markets within countries are frequently not integrated. Barriers to trade within countries are shown to be as important in preventing product market from integrating as barriers between countries. This evidence of withincountry market segmentation is largely based on data from developed countries. Yet market segmentation is likely to be greater between and within developing countries that face large infrastructure, trade facilitation, tariff and other regulatory barriers than between and within developed countries. This thesis uses newly obtained micro-price and tariff data to extend the price-based empirical evidence of product market integration in a developing country, namely Zambia, by examining the influence of trade costs, tariff reform and tradability on internal price dispersion. The main aim of this thesis is to examine how internal trade costs and exposure to external competition affect domestic prices and internal product market integration using Zambia as a case study of a developing country in Sub-Saharan Africa. The empirical analysis is conducted in four inter-related papers. The thesis chapters are organised as follows: The first chapter provides the general introduction of the thesis. The second Chapter documents the background to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank initiated stabilisation and structural adjustment reforms implemented by Zambia since the late 1980s. The focus of the chapter is on documenting in detail the trade liberalisation programme adopted over the period 1987 to 2011 using a highly disaggregated product-level tariff dataset constructed from primary sources, such as the Government Gazettes. This data is then used to document the extent to which the country opened up to external competition initially through multilateral reform and later through regional trade agreements. This chapter sets the scene and foundation for the later chapters, which unpack the link between tariff reform and domestic prices. The third chapter empirically investigates the extent of internal market integration in Zambia across districts, products and time using the law of one price as a theoretical benchmark. It draws on a unique product level database of monthly regional prices from 1993 to 2011 that are collected from the Central Statistics Office of Zambia. The chapter presents a descriptive iii analysis of this data. In addition, it presents a cursory assessment of how trade reforms are associated with the observed trends in internal price dispersion using simple econometric estimates.

Zambia's health sector has continued to evolve with the government undertaking several reforms aimed at improving the performance of the sector to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their precursor, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Amid the ongoing reforms, the health sector has recorded a number of achievements, but some challenges remain. This Public Expenditure Tracking and Quantitative Service Delivery Survey (PET-QSDS) assesses the financing and delivery of health services, and whether the reform objectives have been made. This was achieved by reviewing the flow of financial and other resources in the public health sector from administrative units to service delivery points at the facility level. The data were collected from administrative units, health workers, and patients to gauge the various dimensions of the health system that include financial flows, management of infrastructure, human resources for health, and patient management. Specifically, the issues which were reviewed are: Availability, adequacy, and timeliness of resources for service delivery; implementation of some key policy reforms such as user fee removal and adherence to policy guidelines; donor resource coordination, ownership, and fragmentation at the district level; assessment of human resources management at the district and facility levels; and comparison of staff satisfaction, absenteeism, and service delivery in districts implementing the Results-based Financing (RBF) model and non-RBF districts.