Over the past five years Zambia’s economic performance has been impressive, with GDP growing by over 5% per annum, peaking at 7.6 % in 2010. However, 59 percent of its 12.6 million people still live below the poverty line, and 37% in extreme poverty. Life expectancy is low at 46 years, with high infant mortality and HIV prevalence rates.
Zambia has had a weak education system since independence. In recent years, however, there has been substantial improvement with primary level enrolment rising rapidly, and an estimated 79% of the primary school-aged children attending in 2009. However this falls to 40.9% at secondary level, with wide regional variations, and a tiny minority of 6% reaching tertiary education.
Far fewer girls attend secondary school than boys, and even if the their school has a library most have very few or very old books. Book Aid International has been working with the Forum of African Women Educationalists in Zambia (FAWEZA) to support their three mobile libraries for mixed-sex secondary schools in the areas around Lusaka, Kabwe and Ndola. For some years we have supplied books for the libraries, and in 2010 secured funding from the Vitol Charitable Foundation to purchase a fourth truck for a new library in the rural eastern part of the country. The aim of the service is to demonstrate that access to books will improve examination results generally –(both boys and girls use the libraries) and to ensure that girls have equal access to information. Early indications are that the libraries are contributing to improvements in scores and, in the longer term, FAWEZA is advocating for the government to take over and extend the service to cover all schools. Mobile libraries based on the Zambian model have also been launched with Book Aid International partners in Uganda and Kenya.
We support a number of other partners in Zambia, mainly through the provision of books. One of the most important is Zambian Open Community Schools who provide education for orphans and vulnerable children. The national Zambia Library Service has been through a difficult period, but we resumed the supply of books in 2010 both to stock their central library and to provide books for school and public libraries in rural areas. We also re-established a partnership with the Lions Club of Makuba to provide books for school and municipal libraries in the Copperbelt.
An encouraging new development has been a link with Save our City Library, set up by Zambians living in the UK to support libraries in Zambia. We are working with them to revive the Lusaka City Library which had fallen into disrepair and had virtually no new books for 20 years. A first shipment of books was sent to the library in 2010.
