The Recovery, Reform or Reinvention of Likumbi Lya Mize and the Makishi Tradition
Zambia has no shortage of cultural recognition on paper. The harder question, across the stretch that runs from 2022 to the middle of 2026, is what that recognition has actually changed at Mize, the palace ground of the Luvale where Likumbi Lya Mize is staged each...
Surplus Under Strain: How Election Spending Shrinks Zambia’s Fiscal Buffer
A fiscal buffer is a quiet thing until you need it. Zambia spent recent years rebuilding one — a primary surplus, the gap between revenue and spending before interest, that signals a government living within its means and able to absorb a shock. The IMF's latest...
8.5% and 4.3%: The IMF’s Inflation and Growth Call for Zambia
Numbers in a staff report are rarely the story; the direction of travel between them is. For Zambia, the IMF's latest projections tell a tale of two pressures pulling against each other. Inflation, which sat at 6.8% in April and comfortably inside the Bank of Zambia's...
Private-Sector-Led: The IMF’s Growth Prescription of Copper, Energy and Textiles
Zambia has spent the better part of a decade learning that stability is not the same as growth. The hard arithmetic of debt restructuring, fiscal consolidation and inflation control has steadied the ship, but a steady ship that does not move is still stuck. The IMF's...
Reopen the Pipeline: Why the IMF Wants TAZAMA Open-Access Fuel Restored
Every litre of diesel that moves a Zambian truck, fires a backup generator or runs a mine pump arrives through a bottleneck. The country is landlocked, its fuel is imported, and for decades the choke point has been the TAZAMA pipeline running up from Dar es Salaam....
This Month’s Issue
The Copper Reckoning
How Zambia turns three million tonnes into public value – or watches the boom leak away through a price and an ownership structure it does not set.
- 01 Copper and the Zambian State: Growth Versus Public Value
- 02 Konkola: Reading the Evidence, 2022-2026
- 03 The Needle Eye Review: Consumer Power in Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe
The Recovery, Reform or Reinvention of Likumbi Lya Mize and the Makishi Tradition
A measured 2022 to 2026 scorecard on Likumbi Lya Mize and Zambia’s Makishi tradition, separating real heritage gains from announcements.
Real-Time Rural Power: Zambia’s Digital Dashboard for Electrification Projects
Zambia’s Rural Electrification Master Plan foresees a 2026 digital dashboard to track projects in real time across line ministries, within a US$1.52bn push.
Minus 50%: The Open-Access Evidence for Liberalising Fuel Supply Chains
Zambia’s TAZAMA open-access framework cut fuel import premiums by about 50% before suspension — the IMF’s clean evidence that competition lowers supply costs.
Economics
Surplus Under Strain: How Election Spending Shrinks Zambia’s Fiscal Buffer
A fiscal buffer is a quiet thing until you need it. Zambia spent recent years rebuilding one — a primary surplus, the gap between revenue and spending before interest, that signals a government living within its means and able to absorb a shock. The IMF's latest...
8.5% and 4.3%: The IMF’s Inflation and Growth Call for Zambia
Numbers in a staff report are rarely the story; the direction of travel between them is. For Zambia, the IMF's latest projections tell a tale of two pressures pulling against each other. Inflation, which sat at 6.8% in April and comfortably inside the Bank of Zambia's...
Private-Sector-Led: The IMF’s Growth Prescription of Copper, Energy and Textiles
Zambia has spent the better part of a decade learning that stability is not the same as growth. The hard arithmetic of debt restructuring, fiscal consolidation and inflation control has steadied the ship, but a steady ship that does not move is still stuck. The IMF's...
Money
The Recovery, Reform or Reinvention of Likumbi Lya Mize and the Makishi Tradition
Zambia has no shortage of cultural recognition on paper. The harder question, across the stretch that runs from 2022 to the middle of 2026, is what that recognition has actually changed at Mize, the palace ground of the Luvale where Likumbi Lya Mize is staged each...
Real-Time Rural Power: Zambia’s Digital Dashboard for Electrification Projects
Zambia has never lacked plans to bring electricity to its villages. What it has lacked is a single, current picture of where those plans actually stand. A transformer arrives in one district while a feeder line stalls in another; a line ministry approves a substation...
Minus 50%: The Open-Access Evidence for Liberalising Fuel Supply Chains
Reform arguments usually run on theory; this one runs on a number. Before it was suspended, Zambia's TAZAMA open-access fuel framework cut import premiums by roughly 50%. That single figure does more work than any model, because it is not a projection — it is an...
Lifestyle
From Luvale initiation, masked performance and the cultural institutions of the Mize to the Present: Likumbi Lya Mize and the Makishi Tradition
Zambia exports copper by the shipload and its culture almost by accident. Among the traditions that have quietly travelled furthest is the Makishi masquerade of the north-western Luvale, Chokwe, Luchazi and Mbunda peoples - a masked performance so distinctive it has...
The Long History Behind Kuomboka as Cultural Economy
Every year, when the Zambezi rises and the Barotse floodplain fills, the Lozi kingdom performs a decision that predates every tourism board and every marketing budget. The Litunga, the paramount ruler, moves from the flooded plain to higher ground, carried in the...
Why the History of Tourism, Conservation Finance and Community Revenue Still Matters
For most of the last century, a Zambian national park was a line on a map financed by two purses: the treasury and the donor. Protection meant rangers on a government payroll, topped up by conservation grants from abroad, guarding wildlife against poachers and...
Minus 50%: The Open-Access Evidence for Liberalising Fuel Supply Chains
Zambia’s TAZAMA open-access framework cut fuel import premiums by about 50% before suspension — the IMF’s clean evidence that competition lowers supply costs.
Climate Is Economic Policy: The IMF’s Adaptation Message to Zambia
The IMF urges Zambia to treat climate adaptation and mitigation as economic policy, citing drought and energy-shock vulnerability that threatens growth and
Kuomboka as Cultural Economy: Growth Versus Public Value
Kuomboka’s commercial growth versus public value: who wins, who is excluded, and the reforms needed to protect meaning and local livelihoods.
The Strategic Choices Ahead for Tourism, Conservation Finance and Community Revenue
Forward scenarios for Zambian tourism as conservation finance: a transparent model tracking both ecosystem health and community income toward 2031.
The Public-Interest Case for Reforming Tourism, Conservation Finance and Community Revenue
Conservation finance can fund Zambia’s parks or turn opaque. The public-interest case for disclosure, verification and community access to the numbers.
From Recent Progress to Long-Term Advantage in Heritage Tourism Beyond Victoria Falls
Can Zambia build a national heritage circuit rather than lean on one icon? Two scenarios to 2031 and the indicators that reveal which future is arriving.
From Strategic Thought To Decisive Action.
Moakanyi reports the market. The wider Cabanga ecosystem
helps you lead it — media, infrastructure and growth, one system.
Intelligence
Business media across Africa’s real economy.
Infrastructure
Websites engineered as your headquarters.
Growth
Marketing that turns visibility into revenue.
04
ACADEMY
The Digital Navigator Certification.
The Recovery, Reform or Reinvention of Likumbi Lya Mize and the Makishi Tradition
A measured 2022 to 2026 scorecard on Likumbi Lya Mize and Zambia’s Makishi tradition, separating real heritage gains from announcements.
Real-Time Rural Power: Zambia’s Digital Dashboard for Electrification Projects
Zambia’s Rural Electrification Master Plan foresees a 2026 digital dashboard to track projects in real time across line ministries, within a US$1.52bn push.
Kuomboka as Cultural Economy: Scenarios for Zambia’s Future
Forward scenarios for a community-led Kuomboka festival economy: protecting authenticity while raising local income, with indicators to 2031.
The New Momentum Behind Kuomboka as Cultural Economy
Weighing Kuomboka’s 2022 to 2026 momentum as a tourism and trade event: separating measurable local gains from recognition and announcements.
Zambia Moves You: Rebranding a Nation on the Back of an FDI Surge
Zambia’s ‘Zambia Moves You’ campaign launched 3 March 2026 as FDI rose from US$100m in 2023 to US$1.2bn in 2024 on debt restructuring and reforms.
Buy Zed: How the Indigenous Brands Push Aims to Lift Local Manufacturing
Zambia’s Indigenous Brands initiative and #BuyZed campaign aim to lift local manufacturing by building consumer demand for Zambian brands under the 24-hour