By Angela Moonga
Finance minister Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane has urged the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to align support in terms of expanding access to financing and the Timbuktu initiative to Zambia’s development priorities.
During a bilateral meeting with UNDP administrator Alexander de Croo in Washington on Saturday, the Ministry of Finance states that the discussions reviewed ongoing cooperation between Zambia and UNDP, including the Green Finance Transition Facility, efforts to expand access to financing, and the Timbuktu initiative, within the broader context of Zambia’s green growth and innovation agenda
”During the meeting, the Minister underscored the importance of aligning support under these initiatives with Zambia’s development priorities, including the operationalization of the Lobito Corridor as a platform not only for infrastructure development, but also for industrial activity, value addition, and expanded opportunity along the mining and agricultural value chains,” the statement from MoH read in part. “The discussions also touched on Zambia’s Ninth National Development Plan formulation process and the Integrated National Financing Framework, reinforcing the country’s emphasis on ensuring that international partnerships support practical, nationally anchored development outcomes.
In another development at the World Bank Knowledge Café, held under the theme, What Do Agricultural Subsidies Really Achieve? Secretary to the Treasury Felix Nkulukusa shared Zambia’s experience in reforming agricultural support from a direct input model to a more efficient, transparent, and farmer-responsive electronic voucher system.
”Zambia’s farm subsidy reforms are improving targeting, reducing leakages, expanding farmer choice and creating scope for stronger agricultural productivity, the Secretary to the Treasury said, during a World Bank Knowledge Café on agricultural subsidies,” Nkulukusa said.
He added that Zambia’s shift from a centrally managed direct input support model to an electronic voucher system was driven by the need to address structural weaknesses in the legacy arrangement, including poor targeting, weak beneficiary identification, limited responsiveness to differing agro-ecological conditions and the crowding out of private-sector participation.
He said the previous system, under which inputs were procured and distributed centrally, created room for inefficiencies and leakages, including support reaching individuals who were not genuine farmers.
He said the model also applied a broadly uniform package across regions with different soils, rainfall patterns and climatic conditions, reducing the effectiveness of support and limiting space for agro-dealers and other private actors to build direct commercial relationships with farmers.
Nkulukusa said the e-voucher reform had strengthened beneficiary identification and improved the Government’s ability to determine who should benefit from public support.
”In the process, Zambia identified about 212,000 ghost farmers out of roughly 1 million beneficiaries, highlighting the scale of inefficiency the reform was designed to correct,” he said.
He said the new system had also restored greater farmer choice by allowing beneficiaries to select inputs better suited to local climatic and production conditions, including more appropriate seed varieties in drought-prone areas.
”At the same time, the reform reopened the distribution chain to the private sector, with about 650 agro-dealers joining in the initial phase, helping bring inputs closer to farmers while supporting local business activity and employment,” the statement read part. “On fiscal impact, Mr. NKULUKUSA said Zambia had recorded savings of about $30 per hectare in input costs, while broader implementation had generated annual savings estimated at about $80 million. He said that in Zambia’s fiscal context, the gains represented a meaningful improvement in expenditure efficiency and strengthened the case for better-targeted support.”
Nkulukusa said the reform was deliberately phased, beginning with a pilot in 2023 covering about 30% of districts, later expanding to 70%, with full coverage targeted in the 2026/2027 farming season.
That sequencing, he said, was necessary because agricultural subsidy reform is socially sensitive and requires evidence, learning and confidence-building before nationwide implementation,” he said.
Addressing governance, Nkulukusa said digitisation, stronger data systems and improved beneficiary verification were central to tightening accountability.
He said the e-voucher model reduced discretion, strengthened the audit trail and made it easier to direct support to intended beneficiaries through approved agro-dealers. Zambia is also working with the World Bank and other partners to strengthen the social registry so that support is better targeted and linked over time to pathways out of dependency, he said.
He cautioned, however, that fiscal constraints remained significant.
Rising imported fertilizer prices, he said, has an impact on the volume of support that a fixed budget can sustain, making poorly targeted blanket subsidy systems increasingly difficult to defend, particularly when they risk displacing spending on education, health and other development priorities.
He also said maize production among small-scale farmers supported under the program stood at about 1.5 million metric tons in 2023, rose to around 3.6 million metric tons in 2025/2026 and could exceed 4 million metric tons based on the current season’s planted area. He added that the government was placing increasing emphasis on productivity per hectare, rather than total output alone, as a more meaningful indicator of performance.
He said the reform should not be viewed as a stand-alone subsidy adjustment, but as part of a broader shift toward the Comprehensive Agricultural Transformation Programme focused on irrigation, digital extension services, climate resilience, agricultural financing, warehousing, market access and commercialization. Zambia, he said, was moving from a subsidy-centered model toward a wider productivity and transformation agenda.
