Dimensions of Urban Poverty in Zambia: Insights, Challenges and Policy Directions

This study, conducted between May and July 2024, provides empirical evidence on urban poverty among men and women in Lusaka and Ndola. Using a qualitative case study approach, it engaged diverse stakeholders – including informal sector workers, local government officials, district social welfare officers, and civil society representatives – to offer a comprehensive understanding of urban poverty and inform policy recommendations. Data was collected through focus group discussions and key informant interviews, ensuring a multi-stakeholder perspective on the lived realities and structural drivers of urban poverty. 

Despite Zambia’s resource wealth and its status as one of Africa’s most urbanised nations, urban poverty is widespread. With 40 per cent of Zambia’s 19.6 million people residing in cities, poverty affects 31.9 per cent of urban dwellers – an increase from 23.4 per cent in 2015. This trend underscores the urgent need for targeted antipoverty strategies. While many individuals display resilience, they face persistent challenges such as income instability, food insecurity, inadequate health care, limited educational opportunities and poor housing conditions, all of which undermine their wellbeing and economic agency. 

Authored by Cleopas Gabriel Sambo

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Rural Pathways out of Poverty in Zambia

Poverty rates are high in Zambia, with the incidence of poverty having increased from 54.4 per cent in 2015 to 60.0 per cent in 2022 (ZamStats 2023). This overall trend hides variations according to area of residence and socio-demographic characteristics. For example, poverty is largely a rural rather than an urban phenomenon, with the incidence of poverty in rural areas estimated at 78.8 per cent compared with 31.9 per cent for urban areas as of 2022 (ibid.). Poverty is also more prevalent among female-headed households (83.4 per cent) compared with male-headed households (77.3 per cent). Comparisons between 2015 and 2022 shows that the proportionate increase in poverty rates was higher among female-headed households (4.5 per cent) compared with male-headed households (0.7 per cent). Poverty in Zambia is also associated with the livelihood strategies that households pursue. For instance, poverty is highest among those employed in the agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors, increasing from 63.9 per cent in 2015 to 64.7 per cent in 2022 (ibid.).

This working paper aims to synthesise evidence on pathways out of rural poverty for the Government of Zambia and other stakeholders. It uses mixed-methods evidence on rural poverty graduation pathways in Zambia, categorising these pathways into three groups: (1) chronically and extremely poor people escaping poverty, (2) moderately poor people escaping poverty, and (3) vulnerable non-poor people maintaining their escape from poverty. This report uses recent quantitative data from 2015 to early 2022, capturing the Covid-19 pandemic’s impact on mobility. The life history qualitative analysis extends this further through to November 2023, incorporating the effects of inflation, and the new administration’s social protection and promotion policies. Thus, we can more effectively cover the role of social protection and exit ramps for those receiving social cash transfers (SCTs) while taking into account the most recent impact of climate change on these rural pathways out of poverty.

Authored by Lucia da Corta, Richard Bwalya

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Political Economy Analysis of Pro-poor Policies in Zambia

In 2024, Zambia experienced the driest agricultural season in over 40 years, with significant crop losses, increased livestock deaths and, consequently, worsening poverty. Over 9 million people in 84 out of 116 districts were affected. Rising inflation impeded access to food for vulnerable households Being dependent on hydropower, the drought resulted in an enormous power deficit. In 2024 and early 2025 Zambia experienced power cuts of 21 hours a day, disproportionately affecting small and medium-sized enterprises that cannot afford solar power or generators.

A debt crisis has exacerbated these climate-related challenges. Zambian debt peaked at 140 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020. Along with Covid-19, debt service pressures resulted in Zambia becoming the first African country to default on its external debt service obligations in November 2020, missing a US$42.5 million interest payment on a Eurobond. In addition, Zambia has been hit by three droughts in the past decade. Due to the deaths of two presidents in office (in 2008 and 2014), Zambia has also seen high levels of political turnover, which has impacted policy consistency.

The multiple crises Zambia has faced have had political repercussions, as economic decline has created discontent. The economic effects of crises have further strained the kwacha and resulted in increased inflationary pressures.2 Zambia is under an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme that has strict benchmarks when it comes to subsidies for fuel, electricity and fertiliser. This programme ends in August 2025, opening various policy options, though it will lack the fiscal space which gave President Levy Mwanawasa’s free reign after the completion point of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative in 2006. The forthcoming elections in August 2026 will be tightly contested; if the opposition can unite behind one candidate, it will also influence policy decisions.

Within this context, this working paper discusses the following questions: How can poverty reduction experience a step change in Zambia? What are the political and economic conditions? And what can research tell the competing political parties and how best to achieve change The paper will briefly focus on the anti-poverty measures undertaken by the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) government (2011–21), which started as a leftist movement, before zooming into the current United Party for National Development (UPND) regime, which is more liberal in outlook. It then focuses on the political economy of current pro-poor programming. The paper is based on a literature review, unpublished reports, and interviews and interactions with relevant stakeholders (government officials, civil society organisations, think tanks and analysts).

Authored by Marja Hinfelaar

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Poverty Dynamics and Social ‍Assistance Amidst Intersecting Crises in Nigeria

This paper investigates the role of crises (e.g. armed conflict, displacement, climate-related disasters, Covid‑19, and economic crises) in driving negative poverty trajectories in Nigeria, alongside the extent to which social assistance may be fit for purpose to respond to intersecting crises. The paper adopts a mixed-methods approach, bringing together analysis of quantitative survey data from 2010 to 2023, with qualitative data collected in six states across the country’s six geopolitical zones in 2023. Study findings point to intersecting crises driving both the acuteness of chronic poverty as well as new instances of impoverishment that are becoming sustained. Social assistance – albeit constrained by limited coverage – plays an important role by supporting promotive and protective means of coping during crises. Based on the study findings, policy recommendations include expanding social assistance coverage, strengthening conflict resolution and peace-building, promoting equity-centred economic policy responses, and addressing underlying structural challenges.

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Social Assistance and Coping With Crises in Borno, Nigeria

This paper examines the relationship between social assistance, violent conflict, and intersecting crises, and considers how social assistance can help offset erosive forms of coping that could otherwise drive poverty and food insecurity.

To investigate these issues, the study draws on newly collected household data covering 1,000 survey respondents in 2023 from the Konduga and Maiduguri Municipal Council local government areas in Borno, Nigeria. Borno has been an epicentre for violence over the past 15 years, and has experienced a range of intersecting crises.

Study findings indicate that 43 per cent of households experienced disruptions to income or agriculture, or asset loss, either due to conflict, flooding, or drought. Of these households, 41 per cent reported that more than half of their income source was lost. Despite the negative effects of crises, only 1 in 10 households received social assistance in the year preceding the survey, mainly through non-governmental organisations. This indicates that social assistance is simply not getting through to the people who need it.

Perhaps as a result, households are increasingly drawing on negative and even erosive forms of coping – for example, by being less able to save, less able to make investments, and increasing reliance on loans that together could drive downward mobility. The paper concludes with broad-brush implications for social assistance programmes to become more effective amidst violence and climate-related disasters.

The paper is authored by Vidya Diwakar, Adedeji Peter Adeniran, Emmanuel Nwosu, Fidelis Obaniyi, Chisom Udora

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Financial Inclusion & Resilience Across the Humanitarian, Development and Peace Nexus

We live in an era of uncertainty marked by intersecting crises, shocks, and stressors; these circumstances undermine food, nutrition, and economic security as well as productive livelihoods, health, and safety. In this context, significant attention and resources are devoted to strategies that build household and community resilience in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Notwithstanding progress to date on prioritizing resilience approaches to achieve key outcomes across the humanitarian-development-peace (HDP)nexus, evidence suggests significant additional potential for using financial inclusion strategies to promote resilience.

This working paper describes some of the current, evidence-based thinking on the roles that financial inclusion can play in fostering household and community resilience in response to varying types of vulnerability, risks, and crises. It outlines the types of benefits that financial inclusion can accrue to poor households and communities when integrated within broader resilience-focused services. It first presents a multi-sectoral resilience framework to embed financial inclusion (and financial capitals) as a key part of a gender-sensitive resilient system. It recognizes as part of the context the array of shocks, stressors, and crises prevalent today, and accordingly the need for people in and near poverty to adapt to local realities of climate, violent conflict, and pandemics such as COVID-19 that drive and amplify financial risks.

In this process, it focuses especially on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from across Southeast Asia, subSaharan Africa, and Latin America. In doing so, it aims to provide insights to national policymakers in LMICs as well as to international development practitioners on the most promising sets of interventions and partnerships that can catalyze sustainable financial inclusion among people in and near poverty amid crises.

The cross-country data on financial inclusion and crises suggests that: people living in areas with limited ability to adapt to climate change also have low savings and limited access to timely, affordable finance (savings, credit, insurance, or transfers) which may reinforce their vulnerabilities in times of climate-related disasters; people in and near poverty living in fragile, conflict-affected situations experience difficulties in coming up with funds to cope with emergencies during times of crises; and many people in and near poverty turned to informal sources as a means of coping with the income loss experienced during COVID-19.

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Empowered Worldviews: Assessing the persistence of psychosocial intervention effects in Zambia

Evidence on the persistence of psychosocial outcomes of interventions over the medium and long term, and in the face of shocks and stressors, is limited. We examined the extent to which empowerment associated with a psychosocial, faith-based approach, Empowered Worldview (EWV) persisted 3–5 years post-delivery of the intervention in Zambia among smallholder farmers. The EWV intervention in Zambia was delivered as part of THRIVE, an integrated livelihoods programme. We followed a previous study to disaggregate individual-level empowerment associated with EWV into three domains: internal (which relates to ‘power within’), localised (typically participation and access), and structural (e.g. institutional, environmental, and social structures).

To explore the persistence of EWV effects on empowerment, we used mixed methods and longitudinal data collected in 2020 and 2023, which were the midline and endline points of the THRIVE programme. Empirically, we used descriptive and regression analysis to compare internal and localised empowerment levels between the survey rounds (2020 and 2023) across study groups – including groups that received EWV before and after 2020 – and to the control group. We also re-interviewed a subset of EWV participants interviewed in 2020 to understand how empowerment has changed at the individual level over time.

Life history diagram for Beatrice.

The results show levels of internal empowerment associated with the EWV intervention persisted between the midline and endline surveys, especially when combined with THRIVE livelihood interventions. At the midline, 80.0 per cent of THRIVE with EWV participants were empowered, compared to 82.3 per cent at the endline. In contrast, 72.6 per cent and 73.07 per cent of the control sample participants were empowered at the midline and the endline, respectively. Quantitative results further show that localised empowerment significantly improved between survey rounds among participants who received EWV training and is positively associated with internal empowerment, consistent with literature that suggests localised enablers (supporting social environments) are crucial to sustaining internal empowerment. The qualitative data shows that persistent internal and localised empowerment was observed mostly among households in the non-poor wellbeing category, suggesting that additional interventions are needed to reach the poorest participants. Results also show internal and localised empowerment are positively associated with indicators of household resilience. We conclude the paper with recommendations for programming.

Life history diagram for Edward

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For further insights on the first phase of the study, click here

Vulnerability in Afghanistan before and during the shift in power

Afghanistan is experiencing contemporaneous crises including drought, floods, COVID-19, insecurity, political and economic crises, and displacement, all of which pose serious risks. This layering of crises heightens the probability of welfare loss, which has worsened since the transition of power, and the subsequent suspension of development aid. Though there has been an emergency response from the international community, the scale of macro-level challenges is considerable, and in turn may also compound vulnerabilities at the micro level for population subgroups, such as people in or near poverty, as well as certain groups like women and girls, persons with disabilities, and displaced populations. Though poverty is not synonymous with vulnerability, it is one of the factors that can heighten vulnerability. This brings up the question that if a large share or majority of the population is vulnerable, what is the value in identifying vulnerable groups? Are there degrees of vulnerability, or intersections of contexts and characteristics that may limit resilience capacities and amplify vulnerability that need to be considered?

This paper identifies vulnerable groups in Afghanistan and examines how they can be supported through humanitarian and wider assistance provided by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). It synthesises a range of quantitative and qualitative data sources from 2019 to 2022, spanning multiple household and settlement survey datasets and qualitative in-depth interviews with households and key informants to understand risks and resilience factors that could contribute to vulnerability reduction. This is complemented with a rapid literature review of vulnerability in Afghanistan based on journal articles and grey literature primarily over the last decade to offer a longer-term perspective. The study was commissioned by the FCDO’s South Asia Research Hub to better understand who is most vulnerable in Afghanistan and how can they be supported through humanitarian and wider assistance provided by FCDO, especially since the August 2021 shift in power.

Authors: Vidya Diwakar, Ihsanullah Ghafoori, and Orzala Nemat

The full paper can be downloaded here.

Sustaining escapes from ultra-poverty: A mixed methods assessment of layered interventions in coastal Bangladesh

Bangladesh has seen its poverty rate, the proportion of people living on less than USD1.90 a day, reduce drastically, from 34.2% in 2000 to 6.6% by 2019. However, households who have escaped poverty remain vulnerable to re-impoverishment, and there are still people in the country living in ultra-poverty marked by limited capabilities and assets.

This research explores the potential of multi-sectoral integration and layering of the Ultra Poor Graduation (UPG) programming combined with inclusive Market Systems Development (iMSD); climate-related Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR); and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) interventions to enhance individual and community level resilience capacities and prevent re-entry of participants of the UPG programme into poverty.  We examined this potential in south-west Bangladesh basing on the Nobo Jatra Project (NJP), a Resilience and Food Security Activity (2015-2022) funded by USAID and implemented by a consortium of NGOs led by World Vision. We used a mixed methods research approach to examine and compare wellbeing and resilience indicators among a sample of respondents of NJP exposed to different combinations of the interventions: UPG+iMSD, UPG+iMSD+DRR, UPG+ iMSD+WASH, and UPG+iMSD+DRR+WASH.

The study set out to test three hypotheses presented in the working paper:

Hypothesis 1: Participation in UPG programme with iMSD is associated with absorptive and adaptive resilience capacity development to tackle chronic poverty.

Hypothesis 2: Disaster Risk Management (DRM) training and mobilization and access to WASH services contribute to improving absorptive and anticipatory resilience capacities.

Hypothesis 3: Social and behavioural change components in WASH and women’s gender equality and empowerment can help support sustained escapes from poverty.

Authors: Vidya Diwakar, Tony Kamninga, Tasfia Mehzabin, Emmanuel Tumusiime, Rohini Kamal, and Nuha Anoor Pabony

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Poverty and wellbeing before and during Covid-19 in Cambodia: an assessment of trends and correlates

This study investigates factors affecting welfare prior to and during Covid-19. It employs analysis of the Cambodia Living Standards Measurement—Plus Survey 2019/20 data, alongside five rounds of the Covid-19 High Frequency Phone Surveys between May 2020 and March 2021 to assess socioeconomic impacts of the pandemic.

The results point to a range of factors which could contribute to explaining poverty incidence prior to the pandemic. Household resource endowment was an important correlate of welfare, particularly in terms of possession of a mobile phone, ownership of livestock and land and access to electricity. Other factors include access to financial services, education, involvement in non-agriculture businesses, migration and remittances. However, a range of these variables are being constrained during Covid-19. For example, analysis of Covid-19 phone surveys points to the severity of income loss both in terms of breadth (share of households affected) and depth, the latter more pronounced in proportional terms among households in the bottom two quintiles with an already low consumption base, and also severe among IDPoor households. In other words, not only has income loss been deep, but it continues to get deeper over time, starting from a low base. This suggests that there are considerable processes of impoverishment (breadth), but also destitution (depth) in Cambodia as a result of Covid-19.

As a result of shocks, households were forced to rely on a range of coping strategies, especially reducing consumption, taking loans and, for poorer households in later survey waves, accessing social protection. Reliance on support from friends has been reducing over time, perhaps a result of community networks thinning out. Even though the roll-out of cash transfers has eventually reached many ID Poor households, levels may not be adequate resulting in reductions in food consumption among poorer households and continued food insecurity.

The results point to areas for policy and programming focus, including helping to narrow development gaps by area of residence alongside a regional levelling up focused on the Tonle Sap region. Alternatives to borrowing as a coping strategy are also worth considering, alongside improvements in inclusive access and quality of financial services to help mitigate the adverse consequences of indebtedness. Alongside this is a need to focus attention on children who have missed out on school and learning, particularly from poorer households.

Authors: Vidya Diwakar and Vathana Roth, with Tony Kamninga

Paper can be downloaded here

Welfare of Young Adults amid COVID-19, Conflict, and Disasters: Evidence from Afghanistan

Afghanistan has experienced decades of conflict-related insecurity and disasters, a situation that has been exacerbated by the onset of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). This paper employs the Income, Expenditure, and Labour Force Survey (IE&LFS) 2019-20 to quantitatively analyse poverty and welfare loss in Afghanistan. This analysis hence covers the period before August 2021, offering an important baseline to examine deteriorating situations in subsequent years. It finds that rates of poverty and welfare loss increased during the onset of the pandemic, especially among poor households, potentially reflecting new impoverishment as well as destitution processes. Though these rates were comparable across age groups, in absolute terms, they represent approximately 4.7 million young adults living in poverty in 2019-20. Youth-headed households were disadvantaged in terms of a lower asset base. Though they had more years of schooling, and higher rates of salaried employment and migration that both helped protect against poverty, during COVID-19 they were more likely to record a temporary layoff, reflecting the precariousness of youth employment.

Disasters, insecurity, and a range of negative shocks and stressors alongside COVID-19 contributed to welfare loss, and, in some situations, were amplified during the pandemic. Many households reduced expenditures and the quality or quantity of food in response to these shocks, particularly during COVID-19. Food insecurity was a related consequence, heightened during the pandemic, especially among youth-headed households. Other responses common during COVID-19 included an increase in work-related strategies, potentially substituting a decline in social capital within the community. Though the rate of economic activities among women in general was strikingly low, there was a slight increase in employment during COVID-19 among women in poor households, and among women in households experiencing disasters or in insecure areas amid COVID-19. This may point to a potential narrowing of the gender differential in employment in crisis contexts, though this itself is a sign of distress where women in poverty may have no recourse but to engage in precarious work and uphold an increased work burden to meet household needs in times of distress.

Author: Vidya Diwakar

Paper can be downloaded here

Mixed methods approach for research on youth inclusion in labour markets in Niger

This article briefly explores how to combine two qualitative methodologies to inspect the topic of youth inclusion in Niger via a mixed methods analysis. It presents the ethnographic approach developed by LASDEL’s social anthropological qualitative methodology and the CPAN’s critical realist mixed methods approach to research and analysis of poverty dynamics. In assessing their joint functioning, it also inspects some limitations of the experimented exercise for Niger.

Read the methods paper here

Read the associated report here

Read the policy briefs on education, migration, and entrepreneurship

Authors: Lucia da Corta, Aïssa Diarra, Vidya Diwakar, Abdoutan Harouna

The role of behaviour-change programming on mindsets and livelihoods

The psychosocial dimensions of poverty have long been recognised, but psychosocial factors are rarely included in development frameworks as diagnostics or as interventions to address poverty. Religion and/or faith is also broadly recognized as having the potential to affect mindsets and constraints to economic wellbeing, but faith dimensions are rarely included in poverty interventions. This is consistent with gaps in the wider literature on faith in development and in empirical evidence on faith in development programming.  A review of the literature indicates that a lack of established faith and economic development frameworks might contribute to this evidence gap. Faith and psychological attributes are also difficult to measure, likely contributing to the gap in evidence-based faith-oriented models.

CPAN partnered with World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, to conduct an evaluation of the efficacy of its faith-based approach called Empowered Worldview (EWV). The EWV approach seeks to address ‘dependency mindsets and promote empowerment among smallholder farmers living in poverty’. We conducted a literature review to inform a conceptual framework of the potential pathways of change and outcome measures of an EWV intervention in livelihoods improvement programming. We also empirically tested the framework in Zambia on World Vision’s THRIVE programme (Transforming Household Resilience in Vulnerable Environments). THRIVE is an integrated livelihoods programme that includes EWV as a core approach—in addition to savings for transformation, natural resource management, farming as a Business, disaster risk reduction and microfinance interventions.  

Three hypotheses tested in the study:

1. Households trained in EWV are more likely to have positive mindsets (are empowered) than households not trained in EWV with regards to hope, identity, self-esteem and aspirations of economic/social well-being.

2. EWV interventions positively influence a household’s response to livelihood options, agency, and valuable social relationships leading to economic empowerment.

3. EWV interventions have a positive, statistically significant effect on livelihoods (THRIVE) results, including subjective well-being, income change, resilience, and child well-being.

Authors: Amanda Lenhardt, Vidya Diwakar, Joseph Simbaya, Emmanuel Tumusiime

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Download the technical brief here.

This project has been commissioned and is funded by World Vision.

Leave No One Behind in progress to the Sustainable Development Goals: Priority actions for governments by 2020

The 2014–15 Chronic Poverty Report: the road to zero extreme poverty argued that three objectives had to be achieved to get to zero poverty: chronic poverty had to be tackled; impoverishment had to be stopped; and escapes from poverty needed to be sustained. The report identified 14 policy areas that could be critical for the eradication of extreme poverty and leaving no one behind in the process. These can also be clustered into four pillars: human development, pro-poorest growth, transformative social change and resilience.

This paper provides a reasonably comprehensive basis for identifying policies that will contribute to leaving no one behind, since the chronically poor are, by definition, those who are getting left behind in the process of development. Of course, among the chronically poor are those who are able to make progress and sustain escapes from poverty; there are also those who are stuck on the consumption floor, which has barely moved in several decades, some of whom may be experiencing ‘intersecting inequalities’ (those pertaining to different attributes like age, religion, gender, embodied in the same person) – or, in simpler terms, those who experience multiple disadvantages.

This paper explores context through a re-categorisation of countries using income levels, institutional fragility and progress on poverty, and an analysis of countries’ policy frameworks in 2015. It then explores the above priorities in context, and in each policy area outlines key measures that will underpin progress and enhance access for the poorest and most marginalised.

The aim of this analysis is to stimulate debate as to what policy mix is appropriate, necessary and desirable in different country circumstances. Once policies have been selected, policy consistency over time, as well as their sequencing; cross-government coordination to ensure delivery of the right combinations; and multi-stakeholder partnerships for implementation are indispensable tools to reach the objective of LNOB and achieve the SDGs for all. Governments vary in the extent to which they have such mechanisms in place and allow them to influence policy and implementation.

Authors: Andrew Shepherd and Kate Bird with Moizza Binat Sarwar

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