Social Policy
Zambia's economy remains constrained with high debt, inflation, and recurring shocks due to climate change and pandemics.
The challenge
Zambia's economy remains constrained with high debt, inflation, and recurring shocks due to climate change and pandemics. These overlapping social and economic challenges have pushed more people into poverty. Child Poverty, in particular, has remained persistently high.
More than half of the population of Zambia lives in poverty at 60 per cent according to the LCMS 2022, unable to meet their daily basic subsistence needs. Despite evidence of the high cost-efficiency of improving livelihoods for children and narrowing the poverty gap of poor families, the coverage of social services for households in extreme poverty remains low.
Vulnerable children, families and communities often find it challenging to access services and participate in decision-making processes affecting social sector service delivery.
- 60 per cent of the total population are below the poverty line with majority in Rural areas at 78.8 Per cent (2022 LCMS)
- Poverty data indicate higher levels of poverty for households that are female headed at 63 per cent below poverty line compared to those headed by their male counterparts at 59 per cent (2022 LCMS).
- 6.1 million (65 per cent) of children experience monetary poverty (MODA 2023).
- 27.6 per cent of women between 15 – 19 years have been pregnant (DHS 2024).
- 13.7 per cent of children are orphans (LCMS 2022).
- 70.6 percent of the children in Zambia suffer from deprivations in two or more dimensions of wellbeing simultaneously (2022 LCMS).
- 86 per cent of children with disabilities are deprived (MODA 2023).
The solution
In response to the prevailing high levels of deprivation and inequality among children, UNICEF Zambia supports the Government of Zambia through the National Social Protection Policy by contributing to the strengthening and expansion of social protection coverage to the poorest and most vulnerable sectors of the population. The UNICEF social policy response focuses on child-sensitive social protection and social protection linkages, public finance for children (including national development planning), implementation and monitoring, social accountability, as well as data and evidence generation.
UNICEF has developed a strategic partnership with the Ministry of National Development Planning and contributed to the development of the Eighth National Development Plan (2022-2026). The Plan helps develop and enhance work around demand for evaluations and public finance management, social accountability and public services for children, as well as the development and use of multidimensional child poverty measurements.
UNICEF also provides technical and financial support on the production dissemination and use of data to promote evidence-based programming and advocacy priorities. This is done in collaboration with the Zambia Statistics Agency (ZamStats), the Government of Zambia, and research partnerships with universities, and national and international research agencies.
UNICEF’s social policy programme aims to substantially reduce the proportion of children living in poverty, increase the number of children and households living in extreme poverty who have access to social cash transfers, and improve trends in government expenditure for social sectors by:
- Supporting the development and sustainability of robust and integrated social protection systems to facilitate efficient, accountable and transparent delivery of social assistance benefits.
- Supporting government to ensure that resources are efficiently and equitably allocated to improve outcomes for children.
- Increasing the number of households and the number of children living in extreme poverty who receive social transfers.
- Increasing the capacity of the social protection system to respond to shocks (emergencies) through vertical and horizontal expansions.
- Generating evidence and supporting national data systems to provide routine data on the situation of children and on lessons learnt from programme implementation.
- Advocating for the increase in social sector spending in the annual state budget and promoting early and timely releases from the national treasury to the social sectors.
- Supporting the coordination of child-focused planning and implementation with the national development policy frameworks, strategies and legislation.
Resources
- Child Poverty Report
- Analysis of the 2025 National Budget
- Local Authority Budget Briefs
- Analytical brief of the 2025 Social Sector Budget
- 2022 Population Census
- Eighth National Development Plan
- Multiple Overlapping Deprivations Analysis Report
- Living Conditions Monitoring Survey Report
- Living Conditions Monitoring Survey Infographic