Zambia to hold poverty reduction summit

The Zambian government said it would host a national summit in October on reducing poverty in the country, news reports said on Wednesday. Reports said the summit, scheduled from 15-18 October, would be attended by a cross-section of Zambian society. Boniface Nonde, permanent secretary in the ministry of finance, said the summit would “establish why poverty still looms large even after the strong efforts in the past to eradicate it”. Reports said the government’s poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) would be tabled at the summit. Zambia is one of the most indebted and impoverished of African countries, with an estimated 75 percent of its people classified as poor. It is estimated that the country owes international creditors about US $7 billion. It recently became part of the World Bank and the IMF’s Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative (HIPC).