The 2020 Budget seeks to position Zambia for growth through stimulation of the domestic economy. It articulates a range of macroeconomic, fiscal and debt management, sectoral growth, climate change and social sector policies, strategies and interventions for stimulating growth while protecting the social sector though the ideal of “leaving no one behind” is lost. The seeds for growth in 2020 and beyond have been identified. Now Zambia will have to pay keen attention to planting and nurturing the seeds. It will have to mind the critical gaps and potential implementation and management slippages of the recent past, the heavy debt overhang, which threatens to trample all over the growth, the increasing vagaries of climate change and the weak record of past protection of the social sectors.
Sticking to the script in 2020 and effectively and efficiently implementing the policies and interventions as pronounced in the Budget will probably be Zambia’s greatest test yet; it will be a defining moment for finding the path back to robust growth over the medium term.
