Until the 1990s nearly all Zambia’s foreign trade was transported by rail. Today trucks are the dominant transport mode. The resulting damage to Zambia’s roads and concerns over congestion, safety and environment damage have led to widespread calls for the Government to act to reverse the switch from rail to road. Plans have been announced to rehabilitiate existing rail lines to construct new routes.

Read the full report from Zambia Institute for Policy Analysis and Research (ZIPAR) on Should the Zambian Government Invest in Railways, or attend the event where Alan Whiteworth will present his findings.

The grant program is open to U.S. citizens or permanent residents who are members of the African Diaspora and who have a local business partner in the country of implementation. Applicants will need to have additional funds to contribute to the business plan.

Key Dates

• December 16, 2011 –February 3, 2012: Call for proposals closes at 6 p.m. ET
• April 2012: Announcement of Finalists Finalists will be asked to submit a detailed business plan. The exact number of finalists will be determined by the availability of total funds.
• May 2012: Submission of finalists’ proposals Finalists will be invited to the 2012 African Diaspora Marketplace (ADM) for a “face-to-face” interview with an international jury and the opportunity to showcase their ideas.
• June 2012: African Diaspora Marketplace Event, Washington, DC An independent jury will evaluate each proposal and conduct face to face interviews with finalists to select the winners.

Tour kicks off second phase of successful initiative designed to create entrepreneurial solutions to economic and social challenges

ENGLEWOOD, CO & WASHINGTON, D.C. – November 21, 2011 – The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU) a leader in global payment services, the Western Union Foundation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) today launched the second African Diaspora Marketplace (ADM), an initiative which encourages sustainable economic growth and employment by supporting U.S.-based African diaspora entrepreneurs with ideas for start-up and established businesses in sub-Saharan Africa.

ADM II is launching with a small business workshop tour kicking off November 30 in Atlanta, followed by stops in Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and Philadelphia, before ending in Washington, DC on December 16.

The second phase of ADM will incorporate key lessons from the first African Diaspora Marketplace, targeting grants toward high priority, high-impact sectors in Africa, including agribusiness, renewable energy, and information and communication technology (ICT).

To expand upon previous successes, Western Union and USAID are inviting small business investment funds and technical assistance mentors to participate in the effort to engage diaspora entrepreneurs. Coinciding with the launch, The Tony Elumelu Foundation, an African-funded foundation that promotes the competitiveness of the African private sector, is joining the ADM II partnership. In 2010, the African Diaspora Marketplace awarded more than a dozen matching grants of $100,000 each to winning business entries in seven countries.

“Our support for innovative diaspora entrepreneurs is an investment in the long-term economic health of Africa, and part of our enduring community commitment.” said Hikmet Ersek, president and CEO of Western Union. “Through this collaboration, Western Union and USAID are helping to tap the economic potential of the 1.4 million Africans living in the U.S., bringing more direct investment to the continent. The African Diaspora Marketplace will strengthen and help satisfy demand for locally-produced products and services by leveraging diaspora capital and resources.”

“Small and medium enterprises provide the majority of employment opportunities globally,” said USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah. “By working with Western Union to launch ADM-II, we are strengthening the ability of entrepreneurs to fuel broad-based economic development, build local capacity and expand the reach of key services.”

George Washington University’s Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) will provide research expertise and also evaluate the initial phase of business proposals.

Proposals, to be submitted by February 3, 2012, will be implemented in the following participating countries including Angola, Benin, Cote D’Ivoire, DRC, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

The number of grants awarded will be determined based on grant pool and program need, and is likely to be in the range of 15 to 30 businesses. The matching grant size is expected to be up to US $50,000, with an additional supplement of US $25,000-$50,000 in technical assistance.

Last year’s ADM grantees have been at the forefront of innovative business enterprises, including the first mobile anti-counterfeiting service for pharmaceutical drugs in Nigeria, the first launched GPS tracking system to prevent product loss in Ethiopia, and a high-speed ferry system powered by locally-produced sunflower oil in East Africa which is connecting local economies in Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania.

Western Union is committed to positive social impact through reliable products, responsible operations and innovative community programs such as the African Diaspora Marketplace.

Information about the ADM and past winners, and the schedule for the small business workshops in the seven cities, can be found at www.diasporamarketplace.org.

About Western Union

The Western Union Company (NYSE: WU) is a leader in global payment services. Together with its Vigo, Orlandi Valuta, Pago Facil and Western Union Business Solutions branded payment services, Western Union provides consumers and businesses with fast, reliable and convenient ways to send and receive money around the world, to send payments and to purchase money orders. As of September 30, 2011, the Western Union, Vigo and Orlandi Valuta branded services were offered through a combined network of approximately 485,000 Agent locations in 200 countries and territories. In 2010, The Western Union Company completed 214 million consumer-to-consumer transactions worldwide, moving $76 billion of principal between consumers, and 405 million business payments. For more information, visit www.westernunion.com.

About the Western Union Foundation

Through Western Union’s Our World, Our Family(R) signature program, the Western Union Foundation supports initiatives to empower people through access to economic opportunity. Recognized by the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy in 2009, the program is a five-year, $50 million commitment reflecting efforts made by Western Union employees, Agents and partners around the world. Since 2001, the Western Union Foundation has awarded more than $73.4 million in grants to more than 2010 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in 104 countries and territories. To learn more, visit http://foundation.westernunion.com.

About USAID

USAID is the lead government agency providing development and humanitarian assistance to people around the world. The agency’s Global Development Alliance (GDA) links U.S. foreign assistance with the resources, expertise and creativity of the private sector as well as nongovernmental organizations. Since its launch in 2001, the Global Development Alliance has changed the way U.S. international development projects are financed and implemented. By cultivating more than 900 public-private alliances with over 1,700 individual partners, it has allowed USAID to leverage an additional $9.6 billion in resources for development. For more information about USAID and its programs around the world, visit www.usaid.gov. For more information on Global Development Alliances, visit www.usaid.gov/gda/index.html.

About The Tony Elumelu Foundation

The Tony Elumelu Foundation is an Africa-based and African-funded not-for-profit institution dedicated to the promotion and celebration of excellence in business leadership and entrepreneurship across Africa. As a 21st century catalytic philanthropy, the Foundation is committed to the economic transformation of Africa by enhancing the competitiveness and growth of the African private sector. Founded in 2010 by Tony O. Elumelu, MFR, the Foundation identifies and addresses systemic challenges that inhibit African entrepreneurs. For more information, visit www.tonyelumelufoundation.org

It depends who you ask. In general, UNZA (http://www.unza.zm/) offers more programs than CBU (http://www.cbu.edu.zm/). Also, check out en.wikipedia.org/…/University_of_Zambia and en.wikipedia.org/…/Copperbelt_University

Greetings!

As reigning Miss Zambia UK and your goodwill ambassador, I am assisting the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to disseminate relevant information that can be of interest to all Zambians living abroad.

I would like to invite you to complete a Survey that can be accessed at: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/WEB22AGMN8Y5C7

You may be aware that our country Zambia is currently experiencing an improved business and economic environment with growing investor confidence. With an ever-growing population of Zambians in the Diaspora, and each one of us with the necessary intellectual, cultural, financial, human and social capital, I believe it is time for us to effectively participate in the development of our country to make Zambia a globally competitive and economically prosperous nation.

I am therefore, delighted to inform you that the Government of Zambia (GRZ) is making efforts to effectively engage Zambians abroad who may be interested in participating in the development of our beloved country.

To facilitate this process, the GRZ has established the Diaspora Liaison Office (DLO), under the Office of the President (State House) in order to provide the information that Zambians abroad might be seeking in regard to participation in national development. To be able to gather the necessary information for this purpose, the IOM is assisting GRZ in communicating with members of the Zambian Diaspora through a short survey. This Survey is aimed at finding out more about the wishes of Zambians living abroad who may be interested in contributing to national development, as well as to gather information on the demographics, professional skills, available resources, interests and experiences of Zambians living abroad.

I am sharing this information with confidence, and I encourage you as members of the Zambian Diaspora to participate in this important Survey. I have been assured that all personal information is strictly confidential and will not be released without prior consent of the respondents.

I invite you to visit http://www.statehouse.gov.zm/index.php/zambia-diaspora-survey for more information about the Survey.

It is my sincerest hope that as Zambians in the Diaspora we can seize this opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to change in our country, Zambia.

Thank you in advance for taking part in the survey and for spreading the word!

With kind regards

Andella Chileshe Matthews

Reigning MISS ZAMBIA UK

In fact, the provision of free education from Grade 1 through Grade 12, as I have often maintained, is long overdue. We also need to abolish Grade 7 and Grade 9 elimination examinations.

There are some citizens who fear that the provision of free education from Grade 1 through Grade 12 without elimination examinations will erode the quality of formal education in the country. Here is how we can maintain the quality of education after abolishing Grade 7 and Grade 9 elimination examinations:

1) End-of-term and end-of-year examinations should continue to be administered to gauge each and every pupil’s intellectual development. And transcripts showing students’ performance in these examinations should be made available to parents and guardians in order to afford families the opportunity to bolster school authorities’ efforts to counsel and motivate pupils.

2) Home work should be mandatory, and should be given out to each student weekly or fortnightly.

3) Computer laboratories should be established at educational and training institutions nationwide, and the computers should eventually be connected to the Internet. We need to equip the youth with the computer skills they need in order to compete successfully in the modern socio-economic system.

4) A teachers’ council and an accreditation board should be established and charged with the responsibility of monitoring, regulating and boosting the standard and quality of formal education nationwide.

5) The Ministry of Education should work closely with the Private Schools and Colleges Association to have examination centers at all private schools at public expense.

6) We should make a sustained effort to cater for the basic needs of the educational system, including: (a) schools and classrooms that are adequately equipped for both teaching and learning; (b) qualified, self-motivated and well-paid teachers in every classroom; and (c) competent school administrators on competitive conditions of service, and adequate office supplies and fixtures.

7) Publishers of educational books like the Zambia Educational Publishing House and the University of Zambia Press should be adequately financed in order to make it possible for them to have the necessary mate rial and financial resources to saturate the local market with low-cost reading materials.

Taxes on all kinds of school supplies and reading materials should be removed in order to make them more affordable and provide greater opportunities for Zambians – both young and old – to enhance their knowledge and skills.

9) Postal rates for all reading materials and school supplies packed in the presence of a postal supervisor should be reduced.

Besides, high-school graduates who would obtain a Division 1 should be automatically awarded scholarships upon being accepted at any Zambian college or university. All other high-school graduates and working Zambian men and women wishing to pursue further studies should be granted with low-interest loans upon being accepted into classroom-based or correspondence-based study programs offered within Zambia.

With frugal management of our financial and material resources, we can easily improve infrastructure in schools and employ more teachers and school administrators to cater for the needs of additional students in Grade 8 through Grade 12.

The crying child in front of me carried a sad and worn out face. Her face and skin had been torn from the rough wind, the dust, and the stones she was exposed to. When she cried her skin cracked deeper into her face leaving huge marks and large lines in her tiny face. I could tell the tears made her cracked skin more painful. She had many reasons to cry. For a while I kept my eyes off her, as heavy warm tears gathered into my own eyes. Looking at her was painful. I asked for her name and the woman sitting next to the child said. Her name was: ‘Taonga’ (Meaning ‘Thanks’)

Taonga, the crying little girl, whose mother was busy crushing stones to meet the deadline, comforted herself by taking a hammer, which was lying next to her and like the mother started hitting on the stones. In her own world she was either playing or copying the mother. She could barely lift the hammer yet she manage very well. Hammers were the only toys these kids had. There were no words that can describe this situation. Helplessly tears ran down my cheeks. I looked up the cloudy blue skies and wondered if truly there was someone watching this kind of oppression in this place. But again, another thought stricked me. How could anyone so far away, watch and do something about this kind of oppression, when the people nearby, the people living in this same town did not do anything to change this situation?

The little girl hit the stones, dropped the hammer, begun crying, stopped crying, picked up the hammer, and started the process over again. Instead of being strong, I felt weaker and weaker. I could hardly speak or move myself. I put my camera and writing papers away and just observed as I waited and gathered strength from my inner senses.

I observed other children in other groups, slowly and silently crush stones. Some children looked as if they were playing with the hammers yet they were in the process of learning. The women sitting on the ground next to me told me that the children became experts in stone crushing when they were around 6 years of age. I thought about the United Nations Rights for kids. About how unfair these rights functioned in our stagnating country. Where were the UN Rights for kids in Zambia? Where were the expatriates who spoke so highly about themselves and their jobs? What about the economists, the Zambian journalists? They could expose this evil on a daily basis until someone somewhere reacted. Were where the priests, the pastors and their rich church members?

One woman told me that the Jesus Christ Ministries came to take some of their children for education. But the children still returned to stone crushing after school. The kids do not have another kind of life. They do not know how to play. Their life is work. And I was still astonished to see children around. I asked the women; if the Jesus Christ Ministry had taken some of the children away to school why were there kids around? The women did not want to answer the question, but the kids told me that they had been going to a school without toilets and water. Thus the school had been closed.

One of the women who told me her name was Esnat Mulenga, looked at me with such a warm smile. I stared back at her between tears and asked her: “How old are you Esnat?” She smiled shyly and said: “I was born in 1979. I’m 25. I started this job in 1999 when I was 20 years old, and this is my first born, she is 9 months old”. She pointed at Taonga, the crying child as she held the hammer in her small hands. Where is the father I asked. She told me he was also working as a stone crusher on the Lusaka West road.

I was in shock. I stared at Esnat and was deeply grieved. I was older than Esnat Mulenga but she looked older than my mother. In tears I turned to the other women and asked the same question. Several women told me they were born in 1979 and 1980. Most had started crushing stones in their teens. I felt numb and realised that half the people working in this place were orphans and youths, who just looked 20 times older than average people, because of the oppressed life they had been forced to live. By lunch I could hear most of the infants aged between 4 months and 2 years, crying. I gave their parents some money to buy something, but how long was I going to manage this?

I tried to crush a stone but was told that I needed to learn about the tactics. First, one had to take care of one’s fingers, the eyes and the whole body. Then one had to be careful that pieces of stones did not go flying hitting and hurting others. There were more rules. In fact I needed great discipline to fulfil the job. I asked why the children were allowed to crush stones? The answer was psychological. Beacuse the hammer was not used with the same strength as that of an adult.

I asked how much stone was needed to fill up a wheelbarrow, and how much the women and children got for the work done? The women said: “The wheelbarrow must be mountain full and costs 2,500 kwacha (50 USA cents) for a wheelbarrow! I asked how long it took to feel up the wheelbarrow? “It takes a week and some days”. Replied a Ms. Soko, one of the women. They all had a wheelbarrow each to fill up. The women did not know who put up the price. But as we talked I saw 4 trucks loading crushed stones unto their trailers. Out in the big world these stones were big business.

I’m very worried, because there is nothing that costs 2,500 kwacha in Zambia. Let alone live on 2,500 for a minute, a day or a week. These women live in shanties, far from home and they have to wake up very early in the mornings to walk to town to work. They need transport, they need to feed their children, pay rent, buy clothes, medicine, water, and they need to feed themselves. How does one do that from a 2,500 kwacha??? Where are Zambia’s leaders, where are the International Financial Institutions (IFI) sitting on Zambia’s economy, where are the price controllers and all other Zambians??

These people and their babies need protection. Their babies need nursery and education. Proper education. The adults need good salaries, they need gloves, protecting eyeglasses, a good work place and working clothes, food, and the government must provide all these. Unless the government tell us that they have lost all Sovereignty to the International Financial Institutions. (IFI) The stone crushers are hard working and are trying hard to make ends meet. There is no toilet where they work. No water or food. The women complained that most of the children, women and men working as stone crushers die from hunger related diseases, inculding dehydration.

In order for anyone to understand that this is not a woman’s, or youth, or 9 months old babies’ job or play-ground, one needs to sit with these people and learn to crush stones, feel how it feels, and I challenge all Zambian leaders to try stone crushing. This place is hell on earth. And the only sin these people have committed is to be born on Zambia’s soil. Most of these people do not know what weekend or Christmas is. They work through out the year. Unless some church come to remind them it is Sunday, and that they have to keep it holy.

If only churches could ask how much people earn first, before they asked for offering. They would be stunned to learn that even Jesus Christ would get pissed off if he gave one of his children some money or a good resource, and the child gave it all away to a church somewhere. Christ could say: I gave you but you gave it all away. You did not need it. But again how would Christ punish his children, when he knows his beloved ones have been brainwashed to believe that giving everything away brings one blessings, or that Christ gives back? There must be good men and women, good politicians that can save this situation. I have seen men and women drive vehicles costing 200,000 pounds in Lusaka. What’s such a car for when fellow Zambians are perishing in poverty?

What amazed me most as I talked with the stone crushers, were the expensive cars that drove by. And the smart drivers who seemed not to care about what they saw. Where were all these rich people heading? I dusted myself and parted with the stone crushers and followed the cars.

They drove to a company, whose name is protected in this article. These people were customers buying kitchen/toilet floors, units, and graveyard monuments. I went inside the offices and asked how much a kitchen unit would cost me? I was told that it all depended on what I wanted and how much I was willing to part with. Some kitchen units went up to 10 million kwacha. Around 3.000 USD. What about tombstones? Ho, this was one hot business. Tombstones were sold daily and started from around a million going up to 6 million. Not to forget people are dying in Zambia. So who were the customers? I asked. I was told that it was mostly those with money. Businessmen, ministers, people who have no problem with money. But are these people blind not to see the suffering people outside the gates? Truly the story of Lazarus from the bible need not be repeated in this case?

Zambians are neglecting the living, and caring for the dead. They rather put 10 million kwacha in the ground covering it all up with expensive tombstones while the living gnash their teeth for mercy. Some go to South Africa just to buy tombstones. My question is; what do people get out of such actions? Do they think the dead will be happy or pleased or sad that they never got an expensive tombstone? I got so disgusted that a decree with my family was made never to lay a tombstone on my grave, but to plant a tree there. That’s what our forefathers did. And let the money be used on the living. I talked to a man on the same issue he said: “Zambians are strange people, they fail to preach and to love their families and friends when they are alive. But they preach on their tombstones, putting verses, and showing love when their beloved ones are dead, do they think the dead care?”

I went back to the stone crushers and as I passed by one family, a man asked me to take pictures of him and his family. He also asked me to send the pictures back to him, which I promised I would do through a friend. I took several pictures of his family and the surrounding. Chocked in sorrow, I thought about how so much useful resources and time was spent on the dead and death in Zambia. And how the people could rebuild this nation and eradicate poverty within days if they stood together. But with the False Education done through the radio and the False Godly Mentality of holier than thou that has spread all over Zambia, I wonder how this will be achieved.

There is no connection between Christianity and reality in Zambia. Very few people realise this. For most Zambians, the poor are not doing fine because they are not God fearing. And those doing fine are God fearing. I wonder if Lazarus of the bible was not God fearing when he was poor. Zambians and Politicians must demand new economic laws from their lenders, laws that shall straighten up this country. Zambia is rotting as women and their 9-months and 16- year- old babies perish without love, education, medicine, food and attention. No man has seen God. Thus, Zambians must start saving fellow man first, before they can save God whom they haven’t seen. This also means saying no to borrowing money from the International Banks, that prescribe problems as solutions for the people. Without borrowing no man can be a slave.