Incidence of Poverty by Rural/Urban in Zambia stands at 60% as of 2022. Zambia`s total population stands at 19.6 million of which the 2022 Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (LCMS) shows that 48% of the population were extremely poor with 78.8% in rural areas and 31.9% in urban areas. This implies that about 12 million people in Zambia are presently living below the poverty line. Of these, over 9.4 million are extremely poor and unable to afford basic food needs. Poverty headcount by province Between 2015 and 2022 increased for all provinces except Western and Northern Province. In Western Province, poverty headcount reduced from 73% of the population in 2015 to 61.6% in 2022. Northern Province experienced a decline as well had the largest decline in poverty headcount, from 67.6% in 2015 to 65.3% in 2022. This means that access to education, living conditions and health services have risen in this province while living conditions have also improved. The trend in Gini coefficient by residence between 2015 and 2022 overall results show that the level of inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient in 2022 was 0.507. Nationally, 42.5 percent of children under age 5 are stunted. Analysis by age-group shows thatstunting is highest (53.8 percent) in children age 18-23 months and lowest (23.8 percent) in children less than 6 months of age.
#CSPR believes economic growth is supposed to provide opportunities to facilitate human development and empowerment for citizens in the country
#CSPR believes that the extent of ownership of any national development plan is critical to its success. Engagement with communities in all provinces and various stakeholders is critical in ensuring ownership, monitoring and evaluation of any government project which uses public resources.
All interventions with regards to poverty reduction must consider unemployed youths, women and the most vulnerable
The meeting was made possible with support from Diakonia Zambia Country Office and JCP Zambia
The meeting noted presentations on the subject matter from:
1. Members of Parliament, National Assembly of Zambia 
, led by the Chairperson for the Parliamentary Committee on Health, Community Development and Social Services Hon. Christopher Kalila;
, led by the Chairperson for the Parliamentary Committee on Health, Community Development and Social Services Hon. Christopher Kalila;2. Poverty Status in Zambia by the Zambia Statics Agency.
3. Report on the implementation of the Drought Response Plan by Disaster Management & Mitigation Unit – DMMU
4. Building Accountability for effective shock response emergency cash support by Ministry of Community Development and Social Services, Zambia