As Zambia approaches the presidential, parliamentary and local government elections of August 13, 2026, the national debate should move beyond personalities and campaign excitement towards a deeper question: what kind of economic system will allow ordinary women to produce, trade, export, employ and accumulate wealth?
Mr Brian Muntayalwa Mundubile’s answer begins with a human symbol. In the Tonse Pamodzi Alliance manifesto, Nakulu Mutinta represents Mother Zambia, the everyday woman, grandmother, household organiser, farmer, trader and bearer of family responsibility. Nemisepela represents the youth, while Pamakasa means bringing them to the front. The message is therefore not simply about political recognition. It is an economic philosophy that seeks to move women from the margins of markets to the centre of production, ownership and national decision-making.
The accompanying trade agenda strengthens this philosophy by presenting Zambia as a land-linked production and logistics centre that can connect the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Angola and the wider Southern African market. It argues that Zambia’s borders, corridors, mineral wealth, farms, and regional memberships should create stronger local businesses, more competitive exports, and rising household incomes.
The vision is compelling because women already sustain a large share of Zambia’s everyday commerce. Yet they continue to face weaker access to land, formal finance, technology, procurement, industrial space, safe borders and business information. The new Zambia beyond 2026 must therefore treat women in trade not as a welfare category, but as a central pillar of macroeconomic growth, export diversification and national resilience.
1. Nakulu Mutinta as an Economic Doctrine
Mundubile’s philosophy connects social dignity with productive power. The manifesto’s vision is a democratic Zambia that is industrialised, prosperous, equitable and inclusive. Its H.O.P.E. framework calls for hard work, open government, people-centred development, and economic transformation that benefits all. It also proposes a pragmatic mixed economy, industrialisation, local ownership and stronger citizen participation in major businesses.
For women in trade, this philosophy has four practical meanings.
- Women should be producers and owners, not merely consumers and unpaid family workers.
- Women should receive fair access to finance, land, technology, training, public procurement and regional markets.
- Women should be protected from harassment, violence, arbitrary charges and unsafe conditions in markets and at border posts.
- Women’s enterprise should be measured by business survival, productivity, exports, employment and household income, rather than by the number of grants announced.
This is an important distinction. Empowerment is not achieved when a woman receives a small payment that cannot finance stock, machinery, transport or certification. It is achieved when she can build an enterprise with assets, audited accounts, dependable customers, affordable capital and access to domestic and international value chains.
2. The Gender Gap Is an Economic Loss
Zambia’s official statistics show why the philosophy matters. In 2024, the national labour force participation rate was 38.0 per cent. Male participation was 46.1 per cent, while female participation was only 30.1 per cent. The employment to population ratio was 40.7 per cent for men and 25.7 per cent for women. About 1.562 million women were employed, compared with 2.411 million men. Women also constituted 52.7 per cent of the potential labour force, meaning that many women wanted work or could become available for work but remained outside effective employment.
The asset gap is equally important. Between 2020 and 2024, 47.0 per cent of land titles were issued to men, 29.7 per cent to women and 15.6 per cent jointly. Women accounted for only 3.5 per cent of heavy industrial land use and 6.4 per cent of light industrial land use in the official data. These figures matter because land is not only a place to live. It can be a farm, factory site, warehouse, shop, collateral asset and source of intergenerational wealth.
The latest official gender compilation also shows that financial inclusion improved, but a quality gap remained. In the 2020 FinScope data used in the report, 67.9 per cent of women were financially included compared with 71.2 per cent of men. Only 33.1 per cent of women used formal financial services exclusively, compared with 41.7 per cent of men. Encouragingly, women’s uptake of mobile money was 50.4 per cent, slightly above the male rate of 49.0 per cent. This suggests that digital finance can become a powerful bridge, but only when it is connected to savings, insurance, credit records, affordable business loans and consumer protection.
These gaps are not simply gender statistics. They are indicators of unused productive capacity. When women cannot access assets and formal markets, Zambia loses output, tax revenue, employment, exports and household resilience.
3. Zambia’s Trade Opportunity Is Already Visible
The contemporary economy offers a major opening. Zambia’s gross domestic product expanded by 7.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2026. Wholesale and retail trade represented 12.1 per cent of gross domestic product, transport and storage 11.2 per cent, manufacturing 9.3 per cent and agriculture 6.2 per cent. These are precisely the sectors in which women can participate as farmers, processors, wholesalers, retailers, transport operators, digital sellers, caterers, designers, manufacturers and service providers.
In May 2026, Zambia’s total exports reached K30.1 billion. Non-traditional exports were K9.9 billion, equal to 32.8 per cent of total exports. The Democratic Republic of Congo purchased K4.314 billion of Zambia’s non-traditional exports in that month, approximately 43.6 per cent of the total. Products included sulphur, electricity, cement, beverages, biscuits, maize flour, sugar and other manufactured or processed goods. This demonstrates that the regional market is not a distant aspiration. It is an existing commercial space that can be widened for women-owned firms.
The strategic question is therefore clear. Will Zambia continue to treat women mainly as small informal traders operating at the edge of the formal economy, or will it deliberately build a generation of women exporters, manufacturers, logistics providers, agro processors and suppliers to mines, supermarkets, hotels and public institutions?
Mundubile’s manifesto points towards the second path.
4. The Manifesto’s Architecture for Women in Trade
The manifesto contains several policy instruments that can be assembled into a coherent women in trade programme.
1. A Women Enterprise Fund and an SME Development Bank
The manifesto proposes a Women Enterprise Fund and a dedicated SME Development Bank offering affordable finance to small businesses, cooperatives, start-ups and informal enterprises seeking to formalise and grow. It also proposes specialised development banks for agriculture, mining, housing, construction and export and import trade.
The critical implementation lesson is that these institutions must be professionally governed. Credit should be based on viable cash flows, purchase orders, warehouse receipts, invoices, equipment leases and partial guarantees, rather than relying almost entirely on land collateral.
A women’s fund should not become a politically distributed grant scheme. It should become a ladder from micro enterprise to bankable company.
2. A Decentralised Enterprise Support System
The manifesto proposes a Small Enterprise Development Authority and a more decentralised Citizen Economic Empowerment Commission.
For women, decentralisation should mean access to business advisory services, standards certification, bookkeeping, packaging, export documentation, technology and legal assistance in every province, not only in Lusaka.
3. Local Procurement and Citizen Ownership
The manifesto promises a minimum local procurement threshold and local content laws requiring government and major projects to purchase from Zambian businesses.
This can transform women’s enterprise if the law includes transparent targets for eligible women-owned firms, prompt payment rules and public reporting.
A woman who supplies food to a hospital, uniforms to a school, safety clothing to a mine, furniture to a council or digital services to a ministry should not wait several months for payment. Delayed payment is effectively an expensive loan extracted from the smallest supplier.
4. Land, Industrial Space and Affordable Mortgages
The manifesto commits to promoting women’s access to land and affordable mortgages. It also proposes provincial industrial hubs, agro-processing parks, special economic zones, affordable trading centres, industrial workspaces and business incubation hubs.
This is essential because women cannot scale production from insecure pavements, overcrowded markets or homes without storage and electricity. Every industrial and trading centre should reserve transparent, competitively allocated space for women-owned firms and cooperatives.
5. Simple and Digital Formalisation
The manifesto proposes business registration and licensing within twenty-four hours through fully digitised procedures.
Formalisation should create benefits, not merely new obligations. A newly registered woman trader should gain access to a business identity, digital tax profile, social insurance, credit history, training, procurement portals and simplified export procedures.
6. Agriculture as Trade, Not Subsistence
The manifesto proposes modern farm blocks, irrigation, mechanisation, extension services, crop diversification, aggregation, agro processing and a National Agricultural Marketing Agency that pays farmers within thirty days.
For women, this can create a complete commercial chain from land and inputs to storage, processing, certification and export.
The most valuable intervention is not simply producing more maize. It is enabling women to sell processed foods, animal products, textiles, horticultural products, honey, groundnuts, fish, beverages and other higher value goods into Zambia’s cities and neighbouring markets.
7. Technology and Digital Market Access
The manifesto promotes mobile banking, digital entrepreneurship and improved information systems.
This should lead to a national women in trade digital platform through which entrepreneurs can identify prices, buyers, transporters, standards, border requirements, finance providers and procurement opportunities.
8. Social Protection That Supports Enterprise
Women traders often carry business risk and unpaid care responsibilities at the same time. The manifesto’s proposals on health coverage, maternal services, social insurance and inclusion of informal workers are therefore part of trade policy.
A woman cannot run a stable enterprise if illness, maternity, disability or a family emergency can destroy her entire working capital.
5. The Cross Border Test
Regional trade is where Mundubile’s women-centred philosophy can produce its most visible results.
COMESA estimates that women constitute about 70 per cent of small-scale cross-border traders in Africa and that small-scale trade represents about 40 per cent of total intraregional trade in the COMESA region. Yet a Zambia pilot covering selected borders from late 2019 to 2020 recorded women as only 23 per cent of traders interviewed.
The difference between the regional estimate and the Zambia pilot shows the need for updated, border-specific and sex disaggregated evidence rather than assumptions.
The barriers are well documented. Women traders face complex procedures, long queues, limited finance, poor market information, corruption, inadequate infrastructure and personal security risks. COMESA’s programmes at Chirundu, Kasumbalesa, Mwami, Nakonde and other borders have therefore emphasised trade information desks, trader associations, gender sensitive facilities and action against harassment.
The econometric evidence is instructive. A 2025 COMESA study of the Simplified Trade Regime found that 78 per cent of surveyed traders believed the threshold increased profit, 74 per cent said it reduced transaction costs and 79 per cent said it reduced clearance time. The study estimated average monthly trader profit at US$607.76.
Its regression model found a statistically significant positive relationship between the threshold and profit, with a one-unit increase associated with a 1.28 per cent increase in profit. The model explained approximately 48 per cent of the observed variation in profit.
A separate logit model found that the applied threshold increased the probability of trading more by about 43 percentage points, while women were about 12 percentage points less likely than men to increase their trade. The study linked this disadvantage to weaker access to finance and business management training.
It also estimated that the probability of increasing trade rose from approximately 13 per cent at a US$500 threshold to 23 per cent at US$1,000 and approximately 54 per cent at US$2,000.
The policy message is powerful. Simplified rules matter, but equal rules do not automatically create equal outcomes. Women also need finance, training, safe facilities, information, childcare options, storage, transport and organised bargaining power.
6. An Illustrative Employment and Output Scenario
The scale of the possible gain can be shown through a transparent accounting scenario.
Zambia’s 2024 data imply a female working-age population of approximately 6.07 million, calculated from a female labour force of 1.828 million and a participation rate of 30.1 per cent. The female employment to population ratio was 25.7 per cent, compared with 40.7 per cent for men, a gap of 15 percentage points.
If a women in trade and enterprise programme helped close only half of that employment gap by 2031, the female employment ratio would rise by 7.5 percentage points. Applied to the estimated female working age population, this would represent approximately 455,000 additional employed women.
Revised quarterly figures place Zambia’s 2025 nominal gross domestic product at approximately K721.8 billion. Dividing that figure by the 2024 employed population of approximately 3.973 million gives an indicative average output of roughly K181,700 per employed person.
Using conservative productivity assumptions, 455,000 additional employed women could generate the following annual output:
- At 25 per cent of current average productivity, approximately K20.7 billion, equal to about 2.9 per cent of 2025 gross domestic product.
- At 50 per cent of current average productivity, approximately K41.4 billion, equal to about 5.7 per cent of gross domestic product.
- At 75 per cent of current average productivity, approximately K62.1 billion, equal to about 8.6 per cent of gross domestic product.
This is not a forecast and it does not prove causation. It is an illustrative counterfactual showing the order of magnitude of output Zambia may be leaving unrealised when women remain outside productive employment.
The actual result would depend on capital, skills, demand, sector mix, infrastructure and enterprise survival. The underlying official data nevertheless show that women’s economic inclusion is large enough to influence national growth, not merely household welfare.
7. Eight Commitments That Should Make the Vision Measurable
A serious programme beyond 2026 should publish annual targets and results for the following indicators.
- The value and number of affordable loans issued to women owned enterprises, together with repayment, survival and growth rates.
- The share of eligible public procurement awarded competitively to women owned Zambian firms, including the average number of days taken to pay suppliers.
- The number of land titles, industrial plots, market spaces and warehouses allocated to women through transparent systems.
- The number and value of women led firms exporting under COMESA, SADC and the African Continental Free Trade Area.
- The average time, official cost and number of procedures required for a small trader to cross each major border.
- The number of women traders enrolled in social insurance, health insurance, pension and business protection schemes.
- The increase in women’s participation in manufacturing, logistics, agriculture, mining supply, technology, tourism and professional services.
- The number of reported cases of harassment, extortion and violence at markets and borders, together with investigation and resolution rates.
These indicators would separate genuine transformation from ceremonial empowerment. They would also allow Parliament, civil society, traders’ associations, financial institutions and citizens to test whether Nakulu Mutinta has truly moved to the front.
Conclusion
Hon. Brian Muntayalwa Mundubile’s philosophy for women is most compelling when it is understood as an economic covenant.
Nakulu Mutinta is not simply a campaign image. She represents the millions of women whose labour sustains households, farms, markets, shops, transport networks and communities, but whose productive potential remains constrained by weak access to assets, finance, technology, formal contracts and safe trade systems.
The Tonse Pamodzi manifesto provides a credible policy foundation through the Women Enterprise Fund, the SME Development Bank, decentralised enterprise support, local procurement, citizen ownership, industrial hubs, digital registration, land access, market development and social protection.
Its trade agenda adds the regional dimension by positioning Zambia as a land-linked gateway to eight neighbouring countries and the wider African market.
The responsibility beyond 2026 will be to turn these commitments into costed laws, institutions, targets and transparent results. Finance must reach viable women-owned firms. Procurement must be open and prompt. Borders must be safe and efficient. Land and industrial space must become accessible. Digital systems must reduce cost rather than create new exclusion. Social protection must preserve working capital and human dignity.
When a Zambian woman can move from a market stall to a registered company, from a small loan to investment capital, from local selling to regional exporting, and from survival income to productive ownership, the nation itself advances.
That is the deeper promise of Mundubile’s vision. When women trade, Zambia does not merely include more citizens. Zambia produces more, exports more, employs more, earns more and rises together.
