Mark Besa Ngoma

I just joined the movement to bring @TheGlobalGoals to education! Learn about #TeachSDGs at teachSDGs.org or @TeachSDGs on Twitter!

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@wode_maya @BLibati 🇿🇲

Zambia got the most waterfalls in Africa 🇿🇲

@FMwenge @EUinZambia. Indulge us with time to unpack this. @ClaudioBacigal1 @JozefSikela @ZambiaPDU

@markngm I have read. The emphasis is till on the passage. Every other activity is building around ensuring the rail works and has things to carry. If you’ve a person close to this process let me know we put them on a space

There goes our raw materials. Value addition and economic diversification policies remain in the books. 😰

@FMwenge Please do. I’m open to more discussions around this, including participation in a space if you opt to use your influence to raise awareness and spark constructive debate and idea sharing.

@markngm Thanks, let me check this

@FMwenge Commitments from EU supporting the Lobito corridor, are promoting value addition through funding windows created to finance skill acquisition & commercialisation of smallholder farmers along the corridor. Find out more here: …ternational-partnerships.ec.europa.eu/lobito-corrido… & let me know what you think.

@markngm Alright. What don’t you agree with? My point is this rail is a better route for our raw materials to leave the country. The project does not address value addition at home but it seems to be perfecting an extraction corridor. Let me know if this isn’t the case

@FMwenge 2/2 are what you and I including the masses need to focus on. We indeed as a country have witnessed a lot of missed opportunities (original TAZARA) being one of them, but as of today, we are in better positions to offer insight that could shift this needle in the right direction

@FMwenge I beg to differ with this view, Felix. At is point, conversations on current policy environment (e.g., local content, mechanisation, decentralisation, ASM & natural resources & minerals Act) in terms of operationalisation, indigenous resource mobilisation & skills acquisition 1/2

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Exclusive: Zambia, Africa’s second-biggest copper producer, will use larger-than-expected mining revenues to start a stabilization fund this year, a senior treasury official said bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

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Kundalila Falls

@InfinitelyDean 2/2 capital project with clauses for industrial development & market-driven skills acquisition is paramount to turn the tide. One might argue that in today’s Zambia the missing link is coordination. Enhancing resources allocation & utilisation is essential.

@InfinitelyDean Indeed, enclave economic development has plagued Africa & Zambia has been a victim. There is opportunity to learn from these missed opportunities by deliberating investing in skills development & value chain capture. I’m of the view that Ring-Fencing these 1/2

Jito raises an important point. UAE capital into Zambia is real. The interest is not accidental. The Copperbelt remains one of the world's major supply hubs, with some deposits among the highest grade globally. But we need two harder questions underneath the headline. First: where does value get captured? The UAE already owns Mopani Copper Mines. Zambia does have smelting and refining capacity. Copper leaves Zambia largely as cathode, blister, and anode rather than raw concentrate. That puts Zambia ahead of many mineral-rich countries that export dirt. But cathode is still an intermediate product. Domestic fabrication absorbs only a small single-digit share of cathode output. The overwhelming majority exits for manufacturing elsewhere. The test for every investment, Gulf, Chinese, American, European, is not who owns the asset. It is whether the investment builds manufacturing depth in the country or simply moves the point of exit one stage up the value chain. A different stage is not the same as a different outcome. Second, and this is the harder question: whose electrification does Zambian copper serve? Africa holds under 10 per cent of global copper reserves but now produces close to one fifth of annual output. That extraction intensity matters. If even a handful of African economies reach middle-income levels of per capita copper use during electrification and industrial expansion, exportable surplus could narrow materially, and could even turn to net import. The question is not whether capital is arriving. The question is whether we are exporting what we will need to industrialise. Zambia has leverage. The Lobito Corridor runs through its territory. Its geological position is one every major economy wants access to. That leverage exists to demand not just processing, but a strategic reserve calculation that accounts for Zambia's own future. I examined the value capture question in depth in THE FORCED CHOICE. The conservation question, whether Africa should be ring-fencing resources for its own industrialisation, is one the paper raises but does not resolve. It deserves fuller treatment. canarycompass.com/p/the-forced-c…

@FMwenge So the Skills Development Levy & TEVET Acts respectively need to be revised to take into account financing & operations of TEVET institutions. Conversations on RING-FENCING of SDL & capital/labour intensive projects e.g Lobito & TAZARA to put aside funding for skills development

@markngm What legal and policy framework is needed? How are we training nurses every hour without training people for the sector on which our economy is hanging?

When is Zambia establishing a specific and exclusive college of mining to train low to mid level skilled workers for the mining sector? More than 100 years of mining & with a stock of critical minerals, but no clear skills development plan for the sector. UNZA & CBU aren’t enough

@FMwenge Another issue is how TEVET institutions (particularly public) are incentivised. They earn money on enrolment figures than on completion or competency levels. This means, I will be interested to just enrol students into my institution without regards to how I offer the service.

@FMwenge One is example is the Skill Levy. Employers pay this levy but it is not directly used to enhance learning (training infrastructure, curriculum nor outcomes) as it is pooled into one fund. Then when the national budget is drafted, only 2.2% of the education budget goes to TEVET.

@FMwenge 2/2. Alternatively, transforming existing TEVET institutions offering mining courses (low, mid & technical) into Centres of Excellence is more attainable & viable. Some cooperating partners are working towards this with GRZ & as soon as coordination is enhanced, it be a reality.

@FMwenge Context. Establishing such a college currently requires changes in legal+policy frameworks (I.e., financing & management of TEVET) For instance; a mine with such a college (state of the art) has invested upwards of $30m & fees are ~$9000/student at real market prices. 1/2

@FMwenge @HHichilema 2/2. Alternatively, transforming existing TEVET institutions offering mining courses (low, mid & technical) into Centres of Excellence is more attainable & viable. Some cooperating partners are working towards this with GRZ & as soon as coordination is enhanced, it be a reality.

@FMwenge @HHichilema Context. Establishing such a college currently requires changes in legal+policy frameworks (I.e., financing & management of TEVET) For instance; a mine with such a college (state of the art) has invested upwards of $30m & fees are ~$9000/student at real market prices. 1/2