Lusaka, Zambia,10 October 2022 – A new study reveals that Zambia’s Capital City Lusaka accounts for more than a quarter of the country’s annual gross domestic product (GDP).
The study, produced by the Zambia Statistics Agency (ZamStats) with the support of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), was endorsed by Zambia’s national and local government officials, data specialists, national account experts, academics, urbanization practitioners and representatives of international organizations at an in-person workshop in Lusaka on 7 October 2022.
Opened by Mr. Joseph Tembo, ZamStats’ Assistant Director for Economic and Financial Statistics, the workshop examined the study’s findings and discussed a range of approaches to strengthen the city’s statistical capacity and the measurement of economic performance.
Key findings
The study offers evidence on the economic performance of the city of Lusaka and points to specific measures that could support the local government in unlocking the city’s full socio-economic potential, including leveraging both formal and informal activities.
According to the findings, Lusaka City on average represented at least 24.2 per cent of Zambia’s GDP from 2016 to 2020. The city maintained an average annual growth rate of 3.1 per cent during the same period. The informal sector contributed the largest share to GDP, averaging 40 per cent of the city’s GDP since 2016.
Furthermore, the study shows that in terms of GDP per capita, Lusaka’s economic output per person was US$2,200, which was significantly higher than the national average of US$1,400.
In view of the findings, the study recommended that the government should prioritize policy interventions to attract investors in high-value sectors, improve the city’s competitiveness, and boost economic productivity by facilitating the formalization of many informal activities.
In a written statement to the workshop, Ms. Eunice Kamwendo, Director of ECA’s Sub-regional Office for Southern Africa, stated: “African cities contribute a large share of GDP to the national economy and have the potential to anchor robust economic growth. To unlock their full economic potential, we need disaggregated data at the city level to inform urban planning and management”
The way forward
“Therefore, we hope this study will be of great value to the data landscape of Zambia to support evidence-based urban policy and planning and investment decisions,” she added. “However, this study should not be a one-off exercise. It should be carried out regularly to assess Lusaka’s economic performance and should also be expanded to other Cities in Zambia.”
Ms. Kamwendo continued: “In this regard, we need to strengthen the capacity of ZamStats which is critical to ensuring ownership of city GDP estimation across all levels and equipping national accounts teams with the skills required to regularly conduct measurement studies.”
Addressing the workshop participants, Mr. Trevor Kaunda, Permanent Secretary for Monitoring and Evaluation at Zambia’s Ministry of Finance and National Planning, thanked ECA for mobilizing resources to facilitate the undertaking of the pilot study on Lusaka’s city GDP and providing technical assistance throughout the process.
He said: “My office considers this workshop to review and validate the [Lusaka] study on the estimation of city GDP a very important one as it will help build sustainable capacity for the production and use of statistical data and information for planning purposes as well as ensure uptake of the same among data users. The city GDP estimation will indeed support stakeholders to assess more systematically the economic role, performance, growth, and transformation of Lusaka city.”
The study is part of a wider ECA initiative which seeks to promote a standardized practice of measuring city-level disaggregated statistics across Africa. Lusaka is one of the six pilot cities in Africa currently benefiting from the initiative with the estimation of their city-level GDP.
Insights and lessons from the six pilot cities have informed a forthcoming regional report on city GDP estimation in Africa. Local governments will be able to benefit from the regional experiences documented in the regional report to measure the contribution of their cities to the national economies for evidence-based decision-making, including policy development and planning.
The study on Lusaka City GDP will be a vital tool to guide the city’s planning efforts in the future as well as to facilitate the rollout of the methodology to other cities in Zambia.
Issued by:
Communications Section
Economic Commission for Africa
PO Box 3001
Addis Ababa
Ethiopia
Tel: +251 11 551 5826
E-mail: eca-info@un.org