This article looks at Zambia’s Fourth National Development Plan 1989-1993, presented a year and a half after the break with the IMF/World Bank, within the context of the country’s economic crisis. In spite of the introduction of a number of new issues, such as women in development, the impact of population growth, environmental matters and human resource management, emphasis still remains on the traditional concerns of economic growth, employment creation, export diversification and the redressing of social inequalities. While the document is rich in exhortation – self-reliance, growth from own resources, economic independence – and targets, the strategies envisaged to reach these goals are somewhat vague. For the plan to succeed, the assumptions on which it is based must hold. Unfortunately, the planners seem to have focused on a single scenario. It is, however, likely that the nominal exchange rate will change before the end of the plan period and with it the projections on inflation, imports and exports. The plan also takes a number of key variables, such as the domestic and international rates of interest, for granted. Any changes in these, and others such as import prices, will alter the plan’s outcome. Zambia’s experience illustrates the difficulty of formulating economic policy in a developing economy, given that factors crucial to performance are beyond the control of policymakers. It is also clear that the programmes envisaged in the Fourth National Development Plan could not take off without access to international finance. Bibliogr., notes, ref.
