Sustained growth and improved governance in Africa’s agriculture sector are critical to meeting the continent’s development goals, including creating decent jobs for youth, nourishing growing cities with healthy foods, promoting resilience, and catalyzing domestic revenue mobilization.

Rapid urbanization in Africa south of the Sahara continues to highlight the importance of informal retailers as a source of both food and employment for the urban poor.

Since the early 2000s, decentralization has been espoused as a major policy goal of successive Zambian governments. With the passing of the 2019 Local Government Act, a greater understanding is needed of how decentralization has progressed thus far in Zambia and how political economy dynamics have constrained the process.