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Zambia's struggles with high debt and IMF assistance following an election that led to a change in government. Other countries in Africa facing similar economic problems are watching Zambia's progress.

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The pandemic, the economic management, and the surge in the US dollar is worsening the debt situation of countries in Africa. This DW.com report looks at Ghana and Zambia. The Ghana currency Cedi has lost 50% of its value in 2022. With every increase in the value of the US dollar in countries in Africa imports become costlier and business activity suffers. The result as shown in this report is the closing of many shops and parts of the market in Ghana's capital city Accra. Ghana and Zambia have raced to get IMF support as their debt condition deteriorates. Ghana began negotiations with the IMF at the end of September for a $3 billion bailout. The IMF approved $1.3 billion of the $8.4 billion that Zambia needs to restore its economy.

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If Zambia can put in almost a billion dollars to make primary and secondary schooling free should not an affluent nation like the US make K-12 schooling free and support a big part of college and university fees. Zambia coming out of a IMF bailout during the pandemic is supporting it knowing that it is the best way to take the nation forward, not leaving millions without education behind. Instead America has chosen to let capitalist flaws such as capital allocation to unworthy projects waste capital. This last week alone about $1 billion in capital was shown to be wasted- $100 million for a new golf ball and $700 million for a new beauty business incorporating herbals. Every month wasted capital is shown in Lyrarc.com showing that the capital allocation process in America is deeply flawed and leaves little for education and healthcare because of its distortions and poor allocation serving the interests of a few, and not even that as the money gets wasted entirely to no one's benefit and a complete loss to the Nation. ...

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US vice president Kamala Harris's grandfather was in the Indian Civil Service and was sent to Zambia as an adviser to president Kenneth Kaunda to help with settlement of refugees fleeing Southern Rhodesia during apartheid. She revisits Lusaka and the place where she lived.

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Kamala Harris returns to Zambia after a visit to that country to meet her grandfather Gopalan almost 50 years earlier. At that time Gopalan, from the Indian Civil Service, was given as as an advisor to Zambian president Kenneth Kuanda, helping organize the settling refugees from Southern Rhodesia. This was the period of apartheid South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Kamala as a young girl learned about democracy and political participation from these visits to both Zambia and India. During this visit Kamala Harris visits Zambia, Tanzania, and Ghana, parts of British West and East Africa. Not only is this visit a way to revive relations with these countries, it also marks the end of a period after the Cold War ended in 1990, when the US did not engage with Africa and South East Asia in the way it had done during the Cold War when democratic institutions modeled on the British parliamentary system competed with Soviet Bloc Marxist systems.

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Washington Post Editorial Board says DJT policy of "trade not aid," hand up not handout, is right for Africa- good example the $3 billion US puts in railroad from Congo/Zambia to Lobito port Angola on Atlantic coastline to get critical minerals in exchange for infrastructure building. A loan of $533 million from US IDFC (International Development Finance Corporation) is the right thing says the Washington Post for US to build infrastructure in the Lobito Corridor in Angola that will extend from Congo and Zambia with large critical mineral deposits to the port of Lobito on the Angola coast. Overall investment is $3 billion. This will loosen China's critical minerals control through its investments in Africa on the eastern coastline. The new railroad will take critical minerals of cobalt and copper, other critical minerals needed for electric car batteries and energy infrastructure, from the center of Africa to its western coastline in Angola at Lobito port. Angola will not need to take on ruinous -debt in this kind of deal as other African and Asian nations have in deals with China. Its win-win Africa gets infrastructure and supplies key commodities metals to the US. The interesting thing about this is that for a long time US policy was stuck with USAID and other agencies and needed to change. US government under DJT took much criticism for reducing that funding of bureaucracy and old ways. The Washington Post now says it is the right approach- it is not as presented a US withdrawal from Africa, but in the Posts' words an "overdue upgrade" to a mutually profitable relationship with Africa. For Africa to move to next level as Asia has done as Hong Kong did from the 1950's and 1960's  to trade and investment.  For a long time Republicans were not associated with infrastructure development in Africa or in the US. Under DJT the situation has changed and Democrats like Biden have taken up DJT's approach so that the US now regardless of administration is rebuilding infrastructure. Doing this in Africa makes sense. Investment in infrastructure at home makes sense. The Post is right to say this. ...

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China's loans and projects in Latin America and the unwinding of projects in 2026. China had shifted policy to collecting back $10 billion of loans to Venezuela in meetings of its envoy with Maduro the day the US acted to remove Maduro, says this report in WSJ. China is shifting to reduce losses in the region from loans. Over last 2 decades China has loaned Venezuela $100 billion in exchange for oil shipments. As its oil industry production declined without US assistance Venezuela went deeper in debt. This is another aspect of the problems that this type of model of development brings to finance building of rail and transport, seen across the world from Venezuela down to small countries like Sri Lanka and Zambia. For China this could amount to hundreds of billions of dollars in loans that lack transparency and are opaque to Africa and Latin America, when its construction industry debt and local government debt has led to problems. Other solutions and alternatives are needed.   ...

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Women in rural Zambia celebrate when they get new bicycles. Things that one takes for granted in urban areas in Zambia is really a struggle in rural areas. About 80% of Zambia's people live in villages about 2 kilometers from a road. Bicycles help people to cover a distance of several kilometers easily. A woman in Zambia uses it to make the trip of 7 kilometres with a milk delivery in half the time. She makes more money making this delivery by bicycle. For her this is making a world of difference. With bicycles come mobile phones shrinking the distance and making communication possible in areas that have struggled with ease of living for hundreds of years.

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US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen visits Zambia, Senegal and South Africa to improve ties with African countries and ward off Chinese and Russian influence.

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Wyson Lungu returned to Zambia after studying in the US and joined a telecommunications company in Lusaka. On one of his trips to a remote part of Zambia his car broke down and needed repairs. It took 24 hours before a man with a bicycle helped get him to a place 8 hours away by bicycle. This was one of the few bicycles in that village. Most women simply walked 4 hours carrying farm produce for sale on roadsides starting at 2 or 3 in the morning. This is when Lungu started a bicycle business for farming villages, and so far has sold 3000 bicycles to women in farming villages, with bicycle repair places set up in the villages for bicycle repair and maintenance. This is changing lives in these remote farming villages of Zambia and helping women who do agricultural work in small farms. Lungu relies on cooperative associations he sets up in the villages to organize the sales including payment in instalments and through barter of commodities such as crops or maize. ...

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Discussion on the need for a new framework in which debt of developing countries can be restructured with relief from private creditors and China. This is particularly needed for countries in Africa. Finance ministers from G-20 countries have come up with a new process for restructuring debt of world's poorest countries. These countries owe billions of dollars to China's state owned lenders and western fund managers who bought dollar denominated bonds of African countries. Zambia is the latest case of a country defaulting on its debt during the pandemic. Zambia missed a $42.5 million interest payment on some of its $3 billion in dollar denominated bonds. Zambia is one of Africa's largest copper producers and is now in default. Debts are now 100% of gross domestic product. Zambia's default follows default on debt of Ecuador and Argentina, which restructured their debts, after a steep sell off of emerging market bonds. Lebanon defaulted in March of this year. ...

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Leaders of Africa's development banks and the president of Kenya make this plea for adjustments on debt repayments and a moratorium on debt servicing before the annual conference of global finance at Marrakech, Morocco. The problems are: a 35% increase in debt repayments to $62 billion for Africa with increase in interest rates. The total debt of Africa now at $1.8 trillion. The neglect of education and health when countries such as Zambia and Ghana default on debt. The complexity of debt renegotiation with 40% of debt in private hands and 31% with China which is not part of Paris Club. It took 3 years for Zambia to negotiate its way out. And 23 nations in Africa are near default out of the 52 in the world facing this situation.

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The NYT shows women's World Cup Soccer countries and games in coming weeks. Brazil and France in Group F, Spain in Group C, Argentina and Italy in Group G, Portugal and the US in Group E. Vietnam, Jamaica, Morocco, Zambia and the Philippines have also made it to the soccer championship games in addition to China. NYT looks at each country team.

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Francisco Mari of Bread for the World, a Germany based effort to tackle problems of agriculture says Africa can feed itself if problems can be solved. Problems of infrastructure, water, use of drip irrigation, transport to consumer locations, use of sorghum, millet and grains suited to the soil. Countries such as Malawi, Zambia, Ghana and other countries have arable land that is suited for growing sorghum, millet, fruits and vegetables. Water ground reservoir systems and transport infrastructure are also needed.

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As Iranian Foreign Minister left Pakistan before arrival of American negotiators showing lack of interest in negotiations on nuclear issue and navigation on which US has insisted, the talks are on pause. The US goal is only for the safety of the Iranian people and the peoples of the Gulf kingdoms, and the Arab world divided into unmanageable countries in some situations by colonial Empires of the British and French in 1921 (Syria, Iraq), the wider Arab world from Egyot to Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, to be free of nuclear weapons. Because these colonial policies not of the US but of the British and French and the counter response of Arab nationalism, have created 5 decades of wars in the world. It is then to remove these nuclear materials to another country such as Russia. The misperceptions created in the media appear in some parts to cast the US as a colonial power which it never was in the way of the Spanish, the British, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the French, the Danish. In fact exactly the opposite. One cannot think of an American who felt deeply for the situation the Chinese people were left in with the Japanese invasion than Gen. Joe Stilwell, as shown by Barbara Tuchman in her book Stilwell and the American Experience in China. Stilwell amazingly risked his life in railroad cars behind Imperial Japanese Army enemy lines in north eastern China in the 1930's because of his deep ly feelings for China at that time. Ever since the US differed with the British and the French on reparations during the Boxer rebellion of 1902, with Woodrow Wilson using the funds to create Tsinghua University in Peking (Beijing), the US has been benevolent in its intentions and as shown in its policy to Africa a partner for nations in Asia and Africa- with China, India, Indonesia, a large part of the Asian population, and now with Africa as shown in the investments in Angola, Congo, Zambia on this page. FDR made it clear in his letter of reply to Gandhi's letter from Wardha whose side America is on even in the middle of World War II. ...

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Stephanie Nolan's reports from Africa provide the few glimpses one can get today of the situation in Africa where variants are growing as a result of lack of vaccines (vaccine inequality) and the faltering vaccination drive, shortage of medicine and food supplies. Her report from South Africa showed how healthworkers and scientists in South Africa are working hard on the frontlines. This one from Zambia looks at the vaccination centers and vaccination workers as vaccination drives falter. The African continent with 1.4 billion people received 404 million doses. Today only 7% of the population is vaccinated in Zambia and the rest of Africa. People in Zambia do not have car transport so they have to walk 3-6 kilometres to get to a vaccination center, when they turn up at a center and it is out of vaccines they stop coming. Other problems are the social media accounts that show the vaccination drives as harmful to people, or CNN and other news that talk about blood clots that when carefully understood affect a tiny fraction of people. There are other issues also. Ida Musonda, a nurse in a clinic near Lusaka says after not many people turned up that she should go to markets and churches, but says there is no fuel for the vehicle to get clinic workers there. Bernadette Kawango is shown with her children. She works at an auto parts store and lives in a low income neighborhood in the edge of Lusaka. She ignores all the social media accounts that scare people from vaccines, yet she says she worries more about cholera, TB and malaria, and also HIV, AIDS. And she does not know anybody diagnosed with coronavirus.  The result is that there is vaccine shortage resulting in a kind of vaccine indifference (why walk miles to a center if it may not have vaccines), compounded by other problems such as the other diseases that also pose a threat in Africa, and the low incomes in a shrinking economy. And with about 8% vaccinated in Africa, the problem of variants can only be tackled by consistent and not erratic supply of vaccines. ...

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The peaceful transition in Zambia as Michael Sata wins the election. Sata's party won the election with 43% of the votes compared to Hastings Banda's party's 36%. The outgoing president Hastings Banda's party had been in power for two decades. This is a remarkable peaceful transition of power after disputed elections in the Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe and Nigeria. Sata's support came from the urban young, jobless people and the labor unions. He was critical of mining investments by western companies and China for paying low wages, and campaigned for higher tax revenues from the mining industry. This is a remarkable transition and a good example for future elections in Africa. Recent elections in the Ivory Coast led to a transition that had to be enforced with French support.

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The appreciation of the U.S. dollar and depreciating currencies in Africa in 2015 makes it costlier to import manufactured goods to African countries. Quality Supermarkets in Kampala, Uganda, struggles to fill its shelves with imported packaged foods and manufactured goods. The lack of financing for $30 million in crude supplies leads to the closure of a refinery in Lusaka, Zambia, and long lines at gas stations. The Zambian currency kwacha has depreciated by 17% against the U.S. dollar in 2015. Uganda's currency the shilling, Angola's currency the kwanza, and Nigeria's currency the Naira, all depreciated in 2015. This means larger trade deficits to finance consumer imports or upgrade infrastructure. In Uganda this means delays in upgrades to power lines and transformers. In oil producing countries such as Angola and Nigeria, and oil producers at the early stage such as Uganda and Ghana, there is a double whammy with lower oil prices leading to lower revenues to finance costlier imports. This is likely to slow growth in Africa from about 5% in recent years to 3.7%, according to Capital Economics forecast. Countries in Africa that import oil will see lower import bill for oil, but that benefit eroded by a depreciating currency. South Africa sees benefit of lower oil prices offset by lower revenues from commodity exports of iron ore, and the higher cost of imports with a depreciating currency. ...

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It is one of the great twists of history that a dedicated Indian Civil Service Joint Secretary, follower of Mohandas Gandhi,  at a time of transformation through education of India's Madras State in 1954-63 under visionary chief minister K Kamaraj, has shaped the life and thinking of his grand daughter Kamala Harris in profound ways. Gopalan had seen and been part of the huge transformation in India wrought by Gandhi in the 1930's and 1940's. Pictures of Shyamala Gopalan with her parents P. V. and  Rajam Gopalan, and her two daughters Kamala and Maya, shown in the NYT. Kamala Harris was the first child of Shyamala who came to the US from Madras state as a young graduate student in 1954, in one of the first batches of students coming from independent India to the US.  Madras, now Tamilnadu, was being led by one of its most far sighted leaders K. Kamaraj who was chief minister from 1954 to 1963. It was Kamaraj who set up the free school lunch program in Madras state and helped bring literacy to the state and a strong educational system that would support economic development. This is important because Kamala draws her strength from her mother and her mother draws strength from her father P.V. Gopalan, a Indian civil servant in the visionary Kamaraj government in Madras state. Kamala spent time with her grandfather on visits to India which have shaped the way she thinks and her view of life. P.V Gopalan was Joint Secretary Government of India Ministry of Labour, Employment and Rehabilitation, and was sent to Zambia as Director of Relief Measures and Refugees to handle an exodus of refugees from Southern Rhodesia to Zambia. The two experiences as Joint Secretary, and as Director in Zambia, during the period when Kamaraj led Madras State were profound life changing experiences for this young civil servant who shared his understanding of Asia and Africa with his granddaughter in profound ways shaping her views on life, and what it means to be a good Civil Servant in public service to the people. Passing on to a new generation the ideas of public service of Mohandas Gandhi that P.V. Gopalan had witnessed at close range in his lifetime. ...