JICA Zambia Office

Welcome to ZAMBIA!!

First of all, I would like to introduce to you the "Victoria Falls Ewhich is one of the Worlds Ethree major waterfalls. These waterfalls are the widest in the world with a width of about 1700 meters and fall 100 meters down. It is a grand sight and is more spectacular from November to March when the volume of water is high. The Victoria Falls can be compared to the Mighty waterfall in Niagara. A boating trip down the Zambezi River where the waterfall flows is also recommended.
Besides the above tourist attraction, the major export of Zambia is copper. The copper ore mountains of the world scale are found along the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the past, trading companies from Japan established offices in Zambia and the copper business was developed. Recently, investment in the mines is actively coming from China.

Zambia is a landlocked country in the southern part of the African continent. Its people are gentle and are sparsely populated by a population of about 12 million people in a country of which size is twice the size of Japan. The country is surrounded by eight neighbouring countries and Zambia has never had any fight with its neighbours. In addition, there has been no civil war since independence. The Japanese, who live in an island, can hardly imagine the difficulty of living in a country surrounded by eight neighbouring countries. One of the incidents that connect Japan with Zambia is the Tokyo Olympics in which Zambia participated in 1964, the year of Zambia's independence. The episode was that one of the Zambian directors who participated in the Olympics game under Northern Rhodesia (British territory) and at the closing ceremony, he entered the arena with a new flag of the Republic of Zambia symbolizing its independence.

Zambia's economy in recent years keeps growing up little by little. This is because the price of copper the major export is being pulled up by the economic development of China and India and also Zambia has the good conditions of the touristic and construction industry. The real GDP is exceeding 6% and the inflation rate is becoming one digit. Some hypermarkets begin to be built by the South Africa capital and are energized with the smile of people in the Capital City Lusaka and other local cities. It can be seen that Multi-complex Cinemas where two or more movie theaters exist and the bowling alleys in the shopping malls are in Lusaka. On the other hand, this boom has not yet spread to the whole nation. The average life span is under 40 years old and 60 percent or more of the people live below one dollar per day. The HIV/AIDS adult prevalence rate is 16.5% and this has influenced the increase on the number of orphans more than 700,000.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) works and thinks together with people in Zambia. JICA is executing the support that surely reaches grassroot people who require assistance.
There is a saying which states that "When one drinks African Water, they will always return to Africa again." I hope that the people who visit this homepage will do so again. We will welcome and greatly appreciate any comments or ideas.

12st November, 2008
Shiro Nabeya, Cheif Representative
JICA Zambia Office