NEW POLICY BRIEF: Transition Pathways Towards Inclusive Climate Compatible Growth in Zambia

The authors are: Oliver Broad, Nancy Chama Serenje, Esther Chilala, Rebecca Clube, Jen Cronin, Yanda Hamilemba, Malonga Hazemba, Leonhard Hofbauer, Nick Hughes, Ariane Millot, Clement Njobvu, Mulima Nyambe-Mubanga, Steve Pye, Cleopas Sambo, Bernard Tembo, Meron Tesfamichael, Julia Tomei, and Francis Davison Yamba.

This paper is the latest addition to CCG’s work as part of the TRAP-ZM project (Transition Pathways towards inclusive climate compatible growth in Zambia). The project aims to address the fact that Zambia’s ambition to create inclusive and sustainable growth continues to face diverse but interconnected social, environmental, and economic challenges. These include high levels of poverty and inequality, debt burden, growing pressures on natural resources, and the lasting legacy of COVID-19. Current trends across different sectors all risk significant levels of land-use change and deforestation, whether from the continued informal collection of biomass, or from the expansion of agriculture, mining, and human settlements.

The Brief provides evidence on the effectiveness of certain research approaches when creating an inclusive plan to tack the climate crisis and plan for sustainable growth. The three main tactics that were proven to be effective are that:

Mixed-methods and scenario-based approaches can help to structure institutional arrangements and support effective policymaking.

Scenario-based approaches can form a solid basis for strategy development.

Qualitative methods provide essential context, insights, and framing to analytical approaches.

The Key Recommendations are to:

Foster the development of an institutional framework for futures thinking and analysis.

Break down silos and ensure inclusive decision-making by bringing together diverse groups of stakeholders.

Take a whole systems view to further help overcome oversimplification and siloed thinking in policy design.

Adopt mixed methods approaches to decision-making as a means of embracing complexity.

Co-Author, Steve Pye explains further: This policy brief is based on the multi-year CCG project, TRAP-ZM, whose objective was to support Zambian stakeholders in their vision to transition to a green economy which fosters sustainable and low-carbon development.

Planning such a transition is challenging and multi-faceted and it required the project to undertake different types of research activities to support such efforts. In partnership with ZIPAR and Tec Analytics, these activities included –

Participatory scenario development with stakeholders to co-design different visions of sustainable futures in Zambia, with a focus on energy system and land-use implications.
Model development and capacity building, to assess the energy system implications of such futures, and on the economy and land-use.
Policy influence training to respond to the need for diverse technical experts to engage with the policy process.

Figure 1: Components of the TRAP-ZM project showing: (i) How the OSeMOSYS-Zambia WSM (OSeMOSYSZM) is linked to power sector modelling with Antares; (ii) How soft links to Energy–Economic–Land modelling toolkits for Zambia are co-developed; (iii) How qualitative research developed deep contextual insights to ensure policy and sectoral relevance of any quantitative outputs; and (iv) How project components were shaped by stakeholder interactions and co-developed through capacity building.

The outputs of the project provide strong research capacity in-country on approaches to exploring different futures, assessing the implications of those futures, and on engagement approaches to land research insights with policy makers.

Key learning points have also emerged:

the benefits of an inclusive stakeholder approach that brings together a range of perspectives
the need for a whole systems approach to avoid siloed insights
the importance of mixed methods (both quantitative and qualitative) to strengthen insights
and the need for institutional support for the capacity developed.

Bernard Tembo from Tec Analytics, a key partner in the project, commented on the importance of the research stating: “This project provides robust evidence and insights that will support Zambian efforts to plan how to meet their development objectives.”

You can read the full Policy Brief here.

The larger report on which this Policy Brief is based, can be found here.