Debt burden, climate challenges to dominate July summit by Economic Association of Zambia

The Economic Association of Zambia (EAZ) has called for immediate action to address Zambia’s economic difficulties caused by drought and external debt burdens.

The Association pointed out that Zambia was grappling with two significant challenges, climate induced disasters and the macroeconomic issue of external debt.

Speaking in Lusaka on Friday during the announcement of EAZ National Economic Summit slated for July, association president, Oswald Mungule, stated that these two disasters had impeded the economic growth of the country.

“We want to see how the country can navigate going forward, given that you have a climate change issue and also given that you have a disaster,” he said.

Mungule stated the need for the country to devise solutions aimed at alleviating the impacts of these two disasters.

“We will be looking at coming up with solutions to do with resilience because if the problem is coming from climate change then the solution should come from tackling the climate change problems,” he added.

He also proposed utilising the climate resilience programmes as a means to address the challenges posed by external debt.

“That is why we need the country to tackle the climate change problem so that it is resilient in the long run,” he pointed out.

He stated that the country should prioritise repaying its debt instead of seeking forgiveness.

“We do not want to accumulate external and then go back to the creditors and start asking for debt forgiveness. We want to make sure that once we borrow going forward we know that there are refinancing mechanisms that we can put in place,” he stressed.

He advised that the refinancing mechanism should be based on climate considerations.

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