LUNGU VOWS TO FIGHT POVERTY

Sat, 16 Sep 2017 10:11:30 +0000

By Oscar Malipenga

PRESIDENT Edgar Lungu has promised to work towards giving people living below the poverty datum line hope for a better life and that of their children and children’s children.

The Head of State said poverty levels in Zambia remained unacceptably high, with 54.4 percent of people living below the poverty line.

Speaking when he officially opened the second session of the 12th National Assembly in Lusaka yesterday, President Lungu said poverty in Zambia was overwhelmingly a rural phenomenon with a rate almost three times the levels observed in urban areas.

The theme for President Lungu’s address yesterday was “Moving towards a Prosperous Smart Zambia in Peace and Tranquility without leaving anyone behind.”

“More than half of the rural population at 55 percent is affected by poverty while in urban areas the extreme poverty is at 13 percent,

“Our vulnerable include orphans, female and child-headed households, differently abled persons, the chronically ill on palliative care and older persons. Our interventions, therefore, should give them hope for a better life and that of their children and children’s children,” he said.

President Lungu said climate change remained an obstacle to poverty and vulnerability reduction and had the potential to erode Zambia’s strides to diversifying the economy and attainment of   sustainable development.

To mitigate the problem, President Lungu said several climate-proofing initiatives had been put in place in the national climate change policy with a view to help integrate climate change related aspects in development.

“President Lungu sited making the economy resilient to climate change variability calls for taking drastic and decisive measures aimed at arresting disruption of livelihoods, promoting sustainable production coupled with a number of measures that will result in increased energy generation, building climate resilient infrastructure, and indeed building back better, are some of the key strategic interventions we have embarked on,” President Lungu said.