The Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Hon. Mulambo Haimbe, SC, M.P, has launched the Project Initiation Plan aimed at strengthening Economic Diplomacy, Foreign Policy and institutional capacity for Zambia’s economic transformation project, with support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
As part of the launch, the Minister and Ms. Beatrice Mutali, Resident Coordinator of the United Nations System in Zambia witnessed the Signing and Exchange of Letter of Agreement for the Project Initiation Plan by Ms. Etambuyu Anamela Gundersen, Permanent Secretary International Relations and Cooperation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and Mr. James Wakiaga, UNDP Resident Representative.
In his remarks, Hon. Haimbe noted that the project will be instrumental in supporting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation to implement its mandate based on the two pillars of Zambia’s Foreign Policy, namely peace and security and Economic Diplomacy. The Minister stated that the Project Initiation Plan will support the Ministry in leveraging the Government approach to help strengthen policy and institutional reforms for Zambia’s economic development. This includes capacitating the Ministry in its role as the interface to the international world and custodian of political and economic diplomacy through strengthened Foreign Policy in peace, security and stability and economic drivers, and leveraging technological advancement and wider environmental management through its proposed financing model as a multi-partner pool fund.
Hon. Haimbe highlighted the expected outputs of the interventions by the Ministry such as the development and implementation of a Foreign Policy framework in line with national, regional and international dynamics, and the development of an Economic Diplomacy strategy and alignment of the Foreign Policy framework focusing on trade and investment, carbon trading, critical minerals, technological advancement, and environmental management. This will encompass development of a political diplomacy strategy in line with the Foreign Policy framework centered on peace, security and stability in the country and beyond, and the development of targeted institutional capacity building for the Foreign Ministry based on a needs assessment. This will result in more efficient allocation of functions and overall performance of the Ministry towards priority requirements of the Government’s Foreign Policy.
The Minister urged both bilateral and multilateral partners to render support to the initiative and expressed gratitude to partners that have already committed financing and other forms of assistance. Hon. Haimbe expressed gratitude to the United Nations Development Programme for the valuable support and collaboration with the Ministry, culminating into the launch of the project, which will help to actualize the Ministry’s objectives in line with the Foreign Policy and the 8th National Development Plan.
And Ms. Mutali noted that the collaborative project espouses the values of the United Nations and echoes the call by the United Nations Secretary General Mr. Antonio Guterres in his address to the Security Council meeting on peace and security where he reinforced the connection between development and conflict prevention, emphasising that human development promotes hope, prevention, security and peace.
Ms. Mutali stated that the two pillars of the project were mutually reinforcing as there can be no discussion of peace and security in the absence of real transformative development and vice-versa. The UN Resident Coordinator noted that the Governments around the world, including Zambia, were now faced with issues of globalisation, climate change, new energy transition, conflict and geopolitical tensions, transnational and organized crimes, international terrorism, and illicit financial flows, among others.
Ms. Mutali stated that these complex challenges resulted in the United Nations, through the Secretary General, recommending a Summit of the Future to be held in September 2024. The UN Resident Coordinator expressed optimism that the Summit will encourage discourse either in person or virtually under the common agenda driven by the “principle of working together, recognising that we are bound to each other and no community or country, however powerful, can solve its challenges alone.” Ms. Mutali emphasized that the discussions at the Summit of the Future will occur at a global and high level but targeted and local interventions such as the Ministry project that seeks to bring coherence to Zambia’s engagement with the outside world economically and politically will contribute meaningfully to the shared global goals and acceleration of the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Ms. Mutali expressed gratitude to the Government, through the Minister and the entire technical team, and the UNDP for developing the project through a collaborative approach. Ms. Mutali also expressed gratitude to the development partners for their support to the Government and the UN in its implementation of the 8th National Development Plan and UN Cooperation Framework, as well as their technical and financial assistance towards the project by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
The UN Resident Coordinator reaffirmed the UN’s commitment to working collaboratively with the Government and the Development Partners to harness the collective talent and resources within the UN System to ensure a positive impact on the lives of Zambians.
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