The Southern Africa Trust funded this research by partner Good Governance Africa, conducted in July 2025, to examine mining governance in Zambia’s Northwestern Province as the region emerges as Africa’s “New Copperbelt”—central to national targets to substantially increase copper production over the next decade.

Through stakeholder engagements and community consultations in Solwezi and Kalumbila, the study reveals a critical gap between Zambia’s well-developed legal frameworks and their implementation on the ground. While the country has introduced progressive mining legislation, including mandatory Community Development Agreements and digital mining cadastre systems, regulatory institutions remain severely under-resourced and understaffed, undermining enforcement capacity. Environmental governance failures have led to heavy metal contamination in the Solwezi and Kifubwa Rivers, with severe downstream impacts on livestock, crops, and livelihoods.

The research exposes how mining’s impacts are experienced unequally within host communities. Women participants described carrying a disproportionate burden as environmental degradation intensifies their unpaid labour—fetching water now requires longer distances, while farming on contaminated land has become harder. The influx of predominantly male workers was linked to increased gender-based violence, rising sex work, and higher rates of sexually transmitted infections, while girls’ education suffers from household poverty and caregiving responsibilities.

Despite challenges, the study identifies promising models like the Barrick Lumwana Trust, governed by traditional leadership and community-elected representatives, whose investments in education, health, and income-generating activities align more closely with local priorities. The research demonstrates that while Zambia’s unitary tax system weakens the link between mining activity and local development, intentional governance reforms—strengthening regulatory capacity, institutionalising meaningful Free Prior and Informed Consent, and integrating gender-responsive indicators—can transform mining from a source of inequality into genuine societal transformation.

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This report presents the findings of a feminist political economy analysis of the care economy in Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The study examines eight intersecting challenges: economic exclusion, infrastructure gaps, the informalisation of care work, climate change, migration, social protection, the impact of COVID-19, and shifting political landscapes. The challenges demonstrate that care work is crucial and should be tracked and incorporated into the development agendas of the five countries.

Grounded in feminist values and care justice principles, the research employed both qualitative and quantitative methods to capture the lived realities and structural dynamics that shape care. Sixty in-depth Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) were conducted with individuals across social classes and institutions, purposely selected for their insights into the policies and practices surrounding unpaid care. Quantitative data was collected through face-to-face household surveys led by in-country feminists, with carefully selected and representative samples that allowed for cross-country generalisability.

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The Southern African region has over the past few years struggled to sustainably reduce its level of poverty and inequality. Inequalities along class, race, and gender continue to characterise the access and control over both productive and reproductive assets in the region. The global COVID-19 pandemic has worked to worsen poverty and inequality in Southern Africa.

Existing social safety nets and welfare programmes, policies, and practices were unprepared and not effective in protecting the most vulnerable populations. Responses across various stakeholders tended to be responsive, with early warning systems and disaster management (including risk reduction efforts), similar to global trends, were largely inadequate.

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