While admitting that the ambitious privatization programme embarked on from 1991 to date in Zambia has contributed to unemployment largely due to the closure of privatized parastatal companies, post-privatization business conduct of investors need analyzing in order to understand why the expected economic growth and job creation in the country has never taken place.
In this article the role the local political leadership, globalization and the tendency towards misplaced policy formulation play in driving the state of under development in Zambia will be analysed. The inherent weaknesses in the New Partnership for Africa’s Development which may further deny poor African countries such as Zambia, the benefits of a well timed and supported programme to provide home grown solutions for the continent’s numerous developmental problems will also be looked at.
The paper will contribute towards resolving Zambia’s problems by suggesting the need to formulate policies which create a positive interface between local policies adopted to support and attract investment, and the motives driving the global players to invest in particular countries.
In particular this paper focuses on the absence of good investment policy formulation, and consequently, the absence of the full economic benefit which should be derived by the economy for hosting multinational business enterprises such as the Shoprite Checkers Group.