Zambia experiences high and persistent monetary and multidimensional poverty alongside high inequality and food insecurity. Poverty limits households’ resources and their ability to prepare for, absorb, and recover from shocks, making poor households particularly vulnerable to further downward mobility when crises occur. This vulnerability is further compounded by intersecting crises such as drought and high inflation. Such pressures can create localised ‘hotspots’ where high exposure to crises coincides with high vulnerability and limited coping capacity. For Zambian government actors – including the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services (MCDSS), the Disaster Risk Management Division (DRMD), the Ministry of Gender and Equality, and other relevant line ministries – alongside development and humanitarian partners, identifying these areas is important for prioritising and coordinating limited resources across social protection, disaster risk management, livelihoods, and other forms of support.
Authors: Vidya Diwakar, Marco Carreras, Richard Bwalya