This debate examines the question of whether African societies are capitalist or not. The debate is currently taking place on the ROAPE website (www.roape.net), addressing the question of whether African societies have persistently managed to elude the irresistible forces of capitalism.

The growing urban population in most African cities is creating pressure on basic services infrastructure. Expansion of basic services infrastructure in most of the major cities and small towns in Africa has not matched the growth in urban population. This has resulted in most basic service providers, such as water service providers, being overwhelmed by the rapidl...

The conversion of customary land into leasehold tenure has sparked intense debates in Zambia and beyond. Growing interest in land in the last decade and half has led to a spike in demand for land across Africa, especially land adjacent to major cities, towns and developed infrastructure. This growing demand for land is gradually being directed at customary land, wh...

This paper looks at the policy and practice of cross-subsidisation in the water sector, focusing on the Zambian experience. Setting a price for water services is a sensitive and controversial issue. Pricing water services below cost recovery can threaten the sustainability of the service and human welfare in the long term, while water pricing at full cost recovery ...

This article examines the structural transformation trajectory in Zambia since independence. Drawing from sectoral analysis of the structure of output and the composition of labour over the last five decades, the article illustrates that although there have been shifts in the composition of output and labour in the economy, especially since 2000, these shifts have ...