A traditional approach to Zambia's development

I have been asked several times regarding my strong emphasis on culture in defining development. I thought it deserves a quick blog. The question is 'how do we link culture and development, and crucially, how do we connect chiefs chiefs to the national dialogue, and on what issues, etc?' Here is my quick take on this difficult but important question. Its one I think the nation cannot afford to ignore and the Mungomba Draft Constitution did a bad job by ignoring it.

The traditional approach to economic growth is to see democracy as a necessary condition to development. Indeed most of the discussions we have had on this blog emphasise that open institutions are much more suited for high quality growth. We therefore try and see that any cultural or social function must fit within that model. I would agree with that there is merit in that approach at the national or macro level, but I would like to see a more sophisticated approach on the local level.

The notion of “development” at the local level requires a more explicit ‘Zambian’ definition. To put it another way, the national institutional approach to development presupposes the meaning of “development” for everyone and realigns national institutions accordingly to deliver such high quality growth. It is quite feasible that an alternative definition of local development may command different requirements on the type of local institutions that delivers that development. In fact the reason why people are not experiencing the benefits of national growth at the moment is not just that the “trickle” down effect is minimal (I think it is there) but that local people have a different idea of what development means to them.

Now to some extent things like participatory budgeting helps, but I think more fundamental approaches are needed. This is why I have argued that at the local level our nation needs to go through two steps:

1. Each locality in Zambia needs to define what local development it wants to see and what it means by development.

2. Each locality in Zambia then needs to ask itself, “What local institutions does it want to put in place to help deliver that development?”.

Now it might be the case that for area X “development” to them may means a greater emphasis on cultural norms (less democratic openness) than economic growth. For area Y it could be the other way round (more democratic openness and growth, but erosion of culture e.g. the Swiss model of referendums) or area Z it could be both (e.g. the Japanese model). We should then allow X, Y and Z to define their “local institutions” accordingly to deliver their goals.

What Government should not do is super impose its view of the world or its definition of development on local people. Local people must define what development means for them. In some cases, they will reject democratic openness and in some others they’ll embrace it. Of course then a challenge emerges : how do you align the “macro” picture of open institutions that delivers high quality growth, to the “micro” picture of intrinsic definitions of development – with culture and development interlinked and traded-off according to the preferences of each individual locality?

I think that is where the recognitions of culture at the macro level become important. The reinforcing of the House of Chiefs as a credible second chamber links local preferences on culture to national ideals on high quality growth. By accepting that locally, development also has a cultural perspective, our quest for national growth would not come at the expense of weakening our cultural institutions that some regard as part of the very notion of development. Rather development would come through a greater affirmation of our traditions and bringing them to the centre. If this logical premise is accepted then, Chiefs who are the very heart of our traditions must be recognised as having a primary role to play in our quest for higher national growth, and in defining that national growth.

A very important question we would have to consider with this approach relates to the practicalities . Yakima expressed it best in one of my discussions with him: "is it possible to generate a reasonably complete breakdown of the traditional functions which are or should be performed by chiefs and/or tribal councils?”.

My view is that at the local level, the role of chiefs would be dictated by how localities define development and the level of emphasis they would place on using existing cultural institutions to deliver that development (or keep it as some would see it). So the role of chiefs could even be an improved version of the role they played during colonialism as “native authorities” working hand in hand with local Government administrators and members of parliament. The problem at the moment is that Chiefs looks after the people but they have no budget. Everyone in the village runs to the chief for land and food. One of the great travesties of colonialism is that it reduced these institutions that served the people so well to an irrelevant spectator. The current framework of local governance has continued that approach and no wonder we find delivering local development (of whatever shape) such a challenge – we are constantly working with two systems (Government imposed system and traditional functions). A way must be found where Chiefs can become meaningful. We would need to deal with the issue of literacy for Chiefs, but it can be done.

At the national level – the key is a much stronger House of Chiefs. This will provide checks and balances to what Parliament does – similar to the House of Lords in England. But unlike the House of Lords, these chiefs will be having direct links to the grass roots since they would operate within local “native structures” of some sort.

If I may indulge a little bit: I think the beauty of my vision is that it neatly fuses modern principles of governance while holding onto the beauty of our heritage. In the end really we will never achieve political or economic independence until we develop a distinctly Zambian idea to solving our economic problems. We are struggling to achieve local development because there’s no local idea of development and no vision of what institutions can deliver a more harmonious route to getting there.