Friday, May 29, 2009

SETTING UP BIZNESS...how can a youth clinch it?



Setting up business in Zambia
All businesses engaging in both domestic and /or international trade are required by law to be registered with the Patents and Companies Registration Office (PACRO), an agency of the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry. Registration is either by; business name, public or private company (therefore being incorporated in Zambia) or foreign company.
The basic requirements a foreign investor must meet in order to form a company in Zambia are: to select name of the proposed company, and have alternative names in case the first choice is not available; to select the directors and company secretary; to select the registered office and accounting reference; to decide on what would be the authorised share capital and what the purpose of the company ; to decide as well whether you need to enter into a shareholders agreement; to and decide on articles of association.
The minimum capital required to register a public or private company is K5 million (USD 1,316). The registration fees (inclusive of name search, forms, processing of application forms) differ. The registration of a business name is K85, 000 (USD 23), while the minimum fee for the registration of a company is K245, 000 (USD 65). This amount is however dependant on share capital. It can increase by K5, 000 for each additional K200, 000 of share capital. For a foreign company, the amount is K585, 000 (USD 154).
A foreign investor can register either as a public company or a private company which may be private limited by shares or companies limited by guarantee or unlimited companies. However, should a foreign registered company desire, it may register as such in Zambia by lodging an application for this and the application must be accompanied by a certified copy of the charter, statues, regulations, memorandum of and articles of association or other instrument consulting or defining the constitution of the company. The application must be also accompanied by a statement regarding property acquired in Zambia by the company or in relation to each documentary agent and local director, a statement signed by that person accepting appointment of such position.
Suffice to note that the registration fee for a foreign company slightly differ from that of a local company. Firstly, a foreign company is required to have a registration of a certified copy of the charter, statues, regulations, and memorandum of articles of association or other instruments constituting or defining the constitution of the company. This costs K1, 000, 000 (USD 312.5). The company should also register any document or make a record of any fact authorised to be delivered, sent or forwarded to the Registrar not specified in (a) above. This registration is at K150, 000 (USD 47.00). In addition, certificate registration and sealing both cost K150, 000 (USD 47.00) each.
Company registration is a very easy process if all the necessary paper work is in place. It can be done in one day.
Legal Framework for investment protection
The Zambia Development Agency Act assures investors that property rights shall be respected. The Act states that no investment of any description can be expropriated unless parliament has placed an Act relating to the compulsory acquisition of that property. The Act also provides that in case of expropriation, full compensation will be made to market value and will be convertible at the present exchange rate.
Zambia is a signatory to the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank and other international agreements. This guarantees foreign investment protection in cases of war, strife, disasters and other disturbances or in cases of expropriation.
Zambia has also signed Investment Treaties with eleven countries. These bilateral investment treaties are reciprocal agreements between two countries that encourage, promote and protect foreign investment. These countries are Belgium, Luxemburg, China, Croatia, Cuba, Egypt, France, Germany, Ghana, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
Market Access
Zambia’s active participation in the fourteen countries region SADC Trade Protocol was well as the Africa Wide 20 Countries COMESA/FTA offers preferential tariff access to total market potential of nearly 380 million people.
Similarly, with advent of Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) duty free access to the huge USA market has become a reality.
The AGOA Act provides preferences for quota and duty-free entry into the United States for certain goods. Notably, AGOA expanded market access for textile and apparel goods into the United States for eligible countries. Some AGOA countries have begun to export new products to the United States, such as cut flowers, horticultural products, automotives and steel. Initially, AGOA was set to expire in 2008. In 2004, the United States Congress passed the AGOA Acceleration Act of 2004, which extended the legislation to 2015. The Act’s apparel special provision, which permits lesser-developed countries to use foreign fabric for their garment exports, was to expire in 2007. However, legislation passed by Congress in December 2006 extended it through 2012.
The other agreement that eases Zambia’s market access is the Continou Agreement. The Continou Agreement provides for reciprocal trade agreements, meaning that not only the European Union (EU) provides duty-free access to its markets for Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Nations (ACP) exports, but ACP countries also provide duty-free access to their own markets for EU exports.
Zambia is also a signatory to the Continou Agreement, which aims to achieve free trade arrangements between the EU and the ACP regional groupings.
The other trade agreement worthy noting to which Zambia is a part is Everything But Arms (EBA) initiative of the EU. Under this initiative, all imports to the EU from least developed countries are duty-free and quota free, with the exception of armaments. EBA involves transitional arrangements for bananas, sugar and rice through different time frames.
Other trade agreements are regional, such as Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa and Southern Africa Development Community.

INVESTMENT PROMOTION...a vice or virtue...where the youths?

Investment Promotion Division
Most countries have recognised the importance of foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows for their economic growth, poverty alleviation and development in general. FDI is widely acknowledged to be an essential engine of economic growth, especially in developing countries. FDI inflows are simply capable of creating employment, transfer technology, increase government revenue and contribute positively to the capital formation process of host economies. Investment also provides goods and services needed to improve living standards and contribute to taxes necessary for public investment in health, education other services.

As a result of these and many other potentially positive roles that FDI plays, ZDA’s Investment Promotion Division (IPD) has been mandated to attract and promote more investment inflows through various reform programmes for the country to have a bite of the world’s investment cake.

The recorded increase in world investment inflows confirms the important point that there is no scarcity of sources of foreign investment in Zambia. Therefore, the task facing the country’s IPD at the ZDA is thus not one of scarcity of resources but rather one of increasing the country’s capacity and capability to attract a greater share of available international private capital. The ZDA’s principal challenge is one of presenting the country to the world of investors as an ideal investment location, able to offer opportunities and conditions commensurate with those currently offered by the developing nations that are in dire need of FDI like Zambia.

Therefore, the overall mandate of the investment promotion and privatisation division is to promote Zambia’s investment opportunities locally and to the outside world in order to attract foreign and local investors in different sectors of the economy better than it has been done before. Specifically, the division is responsible for investment promotion, privatisation and establishment of Multi-Facility Economic Zones (MFEZ). The main objective of the MFEZ programme in Zambia is to catalyse industrial and economic development through facilitation of investment in Multi-Facility Economic Zones for the purpose of enhancing both domestic and export oriented business.

Within its overarching mandates, the Investment Promotion Division is responsible for improving the investment environment in the country in order to help to increase both domestic and foreign investment and to enhance their contribution to national economic development. Success in promoting investment requires a careful calculation of how to employ resources most effectively and how to organise investment promotion activities within the economy so that the overriding goal of economic development through improvements in the investment climate remains at the forefront of policymaking.

Impact of direct investment on the domestic economy
The economic benefits of both local and foreign direct investment may be measured by the favourable and positive impact on factors or indicators, which include government revenue, employment generation, export earnings, technology transfer to and skills training for resident employees as well as multiplier economic effects to utility service providers and the general public. FDI further introduce new competence by demonstrating new technologies and training workers who later take employment in local firms. It also forces local firms to improve their managerial abilities or to adopt some of the marketing techniques used by foreign companies either on the local market or internationally for them to found a niche in the market.

The benefits of direct investment can be also viewed in terms of its quantitative effects on growth, as measured by gross domestic product. Because of its potential for such multiplier effects, many countries, including Zambia have embarked on reforms to attract both local and foreign direct investment. The impact of direct investment on the Zambian economy can be evaluated in terms government revenue injection, pay as you earn, corporate tax and value added tax, among others.

Governments world wide need both tax and non-tax revenues to meet the cost of financing its national expenditures. All governments require taxation to fulfill their functions. Most of such government revenue is injected by the private sector. Surveys by the ZDA for the period 2004-2006, revealed that the private sector investment contribution to the treasury through pay as you earn (PAYE) increased from K273.4 billion to K333.7 billion. The survey showed that the agriculture sector had the least contribution to the treasury, while the mining sector had the greatest impact in value terms. This was mainly because of the magnitude of investment and employment levels in the sector. The tourism and manufacturing sectors also contributed significantly to the economy.

Corporate tax is another injector of national revenue. Corporate tax contributions are often dependent upon the increased levels of corporate profitability, which often consistent with private capital flows and investor perception, with respect to planned investment and profitability. Accordingly, the Investment Promotion Division of the ZDA has an important role in promoting the country’s investment and creating a favorable investment environment that can lead to the realisation of more investment inflow in the country. The division presents the country’s investment profile to the world in order to attract investors in different sectors of the economy. It identifies things investors look out for, and instruct government how to provide such necessities for increased investment inflow to be realised in the short and long run. It markets the country’s sectors that are investable in and ensures that an investment worthy climate is created for the investors to have confidence in the economy in which they could be investing their money.

In conjunction with other divisions of the ZDA, the investment promotion division interprets all relevant investment fundamentals to investors so that they have a clear picture of the economy they are entrusting their money into. Some of such aspects are those to do with the political environment, economic, social, environmental, technological and legal environments. Such information is cardinal to both investors and policy makers to ensure that all ingredients of development are provided for by relevant authorities. The division simply analyses the investment environment and communicates its findings to policy makers in order for policy makers to unify all investment requisites in the investment policy framework of the country. It (investment promotion division) further communicates the investment atmosphere in the country as planned in the nation’s development agenda.

The division also analyses key economic indicators to ascertain the performance of the economy. This gives investors an idea of the kind of economy they could be investing their money and can forecast the returns of their investors. Some of such indicators are inflation rates, interest rates, and gross domestic product, among others.

Besides investment promotion, it monitors and carries out privatisation works of government institutions. It monitors the privatisation programme to ensure that it suits in the economic vision of the country. Although privatisation is currently on the low side, the monitoring of the programme is vital to ensure that forecast results of the programme are realised and the programme pursued in the right context in relation to prevailing economic conditions.
Accordingly, investment promotion is key to any economy for the realisation of a quantum of investment inflow in the domestic economy. The inflow of direct investment in today’s economies is of utmost importance as there can be no meaningful development without it. FDI in particular has been rising globally. Most countries are thus undertaking economic policy reforms to attract investment into their economies. Zambia has also undertaken such reforms to make the business environment conducive for investment. The ZDA has been the forerunner of such reforms since inception to ensure that those policies yield positive results. The Agency has the duty to build and enhance the country’s investment profile for increased investment inflow to be realised. It ensures that not only appropriate investment reforms are put in place, but that there is a change in the way the country is perceived with respect to its sustainability as an investment destination. Perceptions are critical and important, in that they influence decisions regardless of facts on the ground. Therefore, the ZDA has the mandate of promoting Zambia as an investment destination and build that image for long term benefit of the economy from the investment inflows.

SME AND YOUTHS...as they cartered for?


Micro and Small Enterprise Development Division
Primarily, the direction of Zambia's economic development programmes were geared towards the promotion of medium and large-scale enterprises mainly in the mining and manufacturing sectors with paratatal companies performing a central role. But with change of policy to private sector led-development, there has been facilitation of growth of Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs). Micro and Small Enterprises cut across all sectors of Zambia’s economy and provide one of the most prolific sources of employment and wealth creation and are a breeding ground for industries.

The development of MSEs is viewed as one of the sustainable ways of reducing the levels of poverty and improving the quality of life of households through wealth and job creation. The contribution of MSEs to economic growth and sustainable development is now widely acknowledged. They are believed to deepen the manufacturing sector, foster competitiveness and help in achieving a more equitable distribution of the benefits of economic growth, thereby help in alleviating some of the problems associated with uneven income distribution. They (MSEs) achieve this by generating more employment for limited capital investment, acting as a ‘seedbed’ for the development of entrepreneurial talent, playing and supplying the lower income groups with inexpensive consumer goods and services. And they act as a buffer in times of economic recession.

In recognising the critical role MSEs Play in the Zambian economy, Zambia Development Agency has set aside a division – MSE Division, which looks at the sector. The MSE Division is mandated to provide services that stimulate the development of MSEs in the country. These services include training, provision of market information and identification of opportunities for joint ventures with local and foreign partners. The MSE division is mandated with such responsibilities in recognition of Zambia’s need to diversify her economy and reduce over-dependency on mining exports. In this vein, the preferred strategy was production of non-traditional export products and creation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. This approach encourages firms to produce for the domestic market, although, the capacity to grow and to export is still very limited.

In addition, the Division is responsible for operationalising government’s policy through various focused programmes on MSE development. It is also mandated to establish strategic partnerships with various MSE Development Organisations and to build the capacity of these organisations to effectively deliver services to MSEs. It further develops, coordinates and monitors and documents all MSE development interventions.

It (MSE Division) is also responsible for regulating the MSE sector and its various implementing organisations and structures and ensuring that all MSE development activities create synergy and are directed at achieving set national goals and objectives. Therefore, the Zambia Development Agency is responsible for liaising with other government programmes and agencies involved programmes and support activities related to MSE Development. The organisation further has the mandate to conduct research and surveys on any aspects related to MSE development and for coordinating and monitoring the quality of MSE interventions by intermediary organisations.


Being committed to the facilitation of the growth of SMEs, government through an Act of Parliament established the Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO) to promote the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise sector. SIDO was established to cater for financing needs of small-scale companies as defined in the SID Act. In 1996, SIDO was transformed into Small Enterprises Development Board (SEDB) through the 1996 Small Enterprise Development (SED) Act and, in 2006 it was amalgamated into the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA Act No. 11 of 2006) as an MSE Division.

In order to strengthen the capacity of the MSE Division of the Zambia Development Agency, government established an MSE Policy. The policy is meant to accelerate the development of the sector and facilitate coordination of development interventions for the sector to be viable. In addition, the reinforcement of the MSE sector was through the establishment of an independent National Council for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Development and the implementation of the provisions of the MSE Policy.

This Policy provides for the active support and participation of all key stakeholders in MSE development. The hallmark of this Policy is partnership and an enabling environment. Suffice to note that the MSE Development Policy is a Product of extensive research, and consultations with various stakeholders, private sector, government ministries, donors and civil society. The Policy development process is indebted to many organisations and individuals for their valued inputs. Some of these organisations are the European Union (EU) that funded the initial process and finalisation of the policy document and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for their technical advisory role. Other technical inputs were provided by various institutions, including Zambia Chamber of Small and Medium Business Associations (ZCMBA) and the University of Zambia. Other roles were played by Government Sector Ministries and other stakeholders and many officials from of the Ministry of Commerce, Trade, and Industry who ensured that the policy development process comes to fruition.
Situation Analysis
The MSEs Sector in Zambia is characterised by business activities of enterprises engaged in traditional industrial sectors, primarily in the production of goods and services for domestic consumption. The primary objective of most of the enterprise owners is to generate employment and income for personal requirements. Business activities among most MSEs are further by characterised by the use of low level technology and are oriented towards local and less affluent market segments.

Since the introduction of structural economic reforms and the country’s transition to a liberalised economy in 1991, there has been increased activity in the MSMEs sector. The existence of a large MSEs sector, of which over 90% are informal, has serious implications on the functioning of the economy. There is however limited documented information regarding the business activities of MSE sector and its contribution towards the national development and economic growth. As a result, it is difficult to estimate the total size of the private sector in Zambia as data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) do not disaggregate national output in relation to enterprise size.

The 1996 baseline survey on MSEs further revealed that the Zambian MSE Sector was dominated by enterprises with a workforce of less than 10 employees and that 52% of all MSE business activities are based in rural areas. Within the MSE sector, manufacturing activities account for 41% while trading account for 49%. Services accounted for only 10%.

MSE business activities are largely in trading, simple manufacturing, and service provision. Manufactured products in the MSE sector include textile products, wood products, light engineering and metal fabrication, food processing, leather products, handicrafts and ceramics to mention a few. The service sector include restaurants, hair salons and barbershops, passenger and goods transport, simple building construction, telecommunication services, business centre services and cleaning services. The trading sector is concentrated in consumable products, industrial products, and agricultural inputs and produce.

The current economic situation presents opportunities which if taken advantage of, can lead to a vibrant MSE sector. These opportunities include implementation of macro-economic reforms by Government which have resulted in substantial reduction in inflation rates, a competitiveness private sector, liberalized trade policies and removal of foreign exchange restrictions. Accordingly, government in 2006 through the ZDA Act dissolved the Small Enterprise Development Board and its activities were incorporated into the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) under the SME Division. Against this background, a need for a strategic and focused development of the MSE sector in Zambia arose. The MSE Development Policy under ZDA provides much needed guidance and direction on all activities and development efforts related to MSEs.

Vision and Rationale
The MSE Policy outlines the goal, objectives, strategies, and implementation framework for all MSE development efforts in Zambia. The rationale for this Policy is to create a national vision and leadership for deliberate development of the MSE sector and to facilitate creation and implementation of relevant and effective sector legislation and regulatory framework. The Policy further aims to define the sector, its actors, their roles, and responsibilities and to ensure coordination and synergy in the implementation of MSE support activities. Furthermore, the goal of the Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprise Policy is to create a vibrant, dynamic sector that contributes 20% of Gross Domestic Product and 30% annually to creation of decent employment by the year 2015.

The pursuance the goal of the MSE Policy is guided by the principle that the policy will operate within the national socio-economic development agenda and will be aligned to the national development objectives outlined in the Fifth National Development Plan, the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and the Vision 2030. In addition, it will be pursued through the provisions of the policy that will be supported by appropriate legal, financial institutional and national development frameworks. And the implementation of the policy will take into account regional and global best practices in MSES development in order to ensure that the sector is current with global development trends. This brings about government collaboration with the private sector, cooperating partners, non governmental organisations, and other stakeholders to implement the MSE Policy. The Policy promotes equality in opportunities and gender participation in its pursuit of outcomes and will give emphasis on the role of women as economic actors in MSE development. Vulnerable and disadvantaged persons receive special attention under the provision of the Policy. It will uphold workers rights including promotion of safe working conditions and prevention/mitigation of HIV/AIDS.


The MSE Policy aims at achieving some key development objectives such as facilitating the creation and development of viable Micro Small and Enterprises that contributes 30% towards annual employment creation and 20% towards Gross Domestic Product by the year 2018. It also aims to facilitate an increase of 10% towards utilisation and value addition of local raw materials in identified regional areas by the year 2018. Furthermore, the policy aims at strengthening forward linkages between MSEs and large scale companies by facilitating an annual increase of 10% in subcontracting of MSE by large scale companies. This entails facilitating improvements in productivity in the MSE sector by 10% by the year 2018. It also aims to enhance Local Economic Development thereby stimulating broad based economic growth by establishing five (5) Business Incubators and five (5) Industrial Parks in identified locations by the year 2018.


Zambia Development Agency

Zambia Development Agency
Today the profile of development has changed. Many countries are currently not only pursuing development, but are also looking at ways of enhancing it and sustaining it. This means the attainment of development sustainably requires a strategic overseer of the country’s development vision. The creation of Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) fits well in this position to shape Zambia’s development vision.

The Zambia Development Agency (the Agency or ZDA) was established in 2006 by an Act of parliament (ZDA Act, No. 11 of 2006) and became operational in January 2007 after the amalgamation of five statutory bodies that till then operated independently. These institutions were the Export Board of Zambia (EBZ), Small Enterprise Development Board (SEDB), Zambia Export processing Zones Authority (ZEPZA), Zambia Investment Centre (ZIC) and the Zambia Privatisation Agency (ZPA). The Agency undertakes all the services previously carried out by these institutions and other functions as prescribed in the Act.

The aim of the Agency is to foster economic growth and development by promoting trade and investment through an efficient, effective and coordinated private sector led economic development strategy. In totality, the Agency’s mandate is very broad and includes furtherance of the economic development of Zambia by promoting competitiveness in business and subsequently promoting exports from the country.

The government rationalised the new institutional setup under the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry in order to improve upon service delivery by operationalising the concept of one ‘stop-shop.’ The one stop facility is meant, among other matters, to reduce overlaps and time-consuming procedures in the issuance of investment permits, dialogue with the private sector and create confidence in public sector support for business. The Agency also attracts and facilitates inward and after care investment, streamlines bureaucratic procedures and requirements faced by investors. It additionally provides and facilitates support to micro and small business enterprises, promotes and encourages education and skills training so as to increase productivity in business enterprises and promotes greenfield investments (new investments) through joint ventures and partnerships between local and foreign investors, among others.

The Agency is a semi-autonomous institution with its Board of Directors appointed by the Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry. The Board comprises members of the public and private as well as civil society organisation. The chairperson and vice chairperson are both appointed from the private sector. The Board comprises sixteen (16) members. The organisation has its head office in Lusaka and regional offices in Kitwe, Kasama, Livingstone, Mansa and Mongu.

The Agency’s mission statement to is promote and facilitate investment, trade, competitiveness and the development of Small and Micro Enterprises (SMEs) by providing comprehensive services in a transparent, innovative and efficient manner. The Agency has set strategic goals in its aim to fulfill its mission, drawn from the ZDA Act. These strategic goals are meant to improve the operations of the Agency in it quest to facilitate investment and development in the country. The Agency thus conducts research on a continuous basis on issues relevant commerce, trade and industry and to the general development vision of the country. Ultimately, ZDA looks at ways of attracting and facilitating foreign and domestic investment as well as improving investor confidence in the country so as to make Zambia an attractive final investment destination in the regional, among other goals.

In order to effectively execute its mandate, fulfill its missions and achieve its vision, ZDA is organised into five (5) divisions. The Investment Promotion and Privatisation Division is the first division. The overall mandate of the Division is to promote Zambia’s investment opportunities locally and to the outside world in order to attract foreign and local investors in different sectors of the economy. Precisely, the Division is responsible for investment promotion, privatisation and establishment of Multi-Facility Economic Zones.

The second division is the Research, Planning and Policy Division. This Division is responsible for conducting comprehensive research relevant to facilitating the mandate of ZDA. The Division is specifically responsible for generating information on all sectors of the economy and advising on policy issues related to industrial development and business environment in the country. It is also responsible for ZDA’s planning process, coordination of all plans to ensure attainment of set objectives.

The Division’s mandate is also extended to ensuring identification, development and management of areas in the Agency in need of information technology to ensure efficient and effective information systems.

The other division is the Micro and Small Enterprise Development Division. The Division is mandated to provide services that stimulate the development of SMEs in the country. These services include training, provision of market information and identification of opportunities for joint ventures with local and foreign partners. The Agency also has the Export Promotion and Market Development Division. The overall mandate of this Division is to promote export and competitive international trade from Zambia and to assist Zambian businesses and entrepreneurs in accessing new markets and expanding existing ones for their products within the region and beyond. The Division’s strategy extends to assisting entrepreneurs to source inputs at competitive rates.

Lastly, it has the Corporate Services Division. The Corporate Service Division is responsible for the provision of corporate support to the overall operations of the Agency. Its main function is to ensure placement of adequate systems and procedures for managing the financial, human and physical resources aimed towards the effective and efficient operations. The Division is also the custodian of the Agency’s assets.

Besides these five Divisions, there is the office of the Director General. This office represents a separate functional part of the Agency. The office has three (3) units that include internal audit, legal and communications and public relations.

Functions
The establishment of the Zambia Development Agency was mainly to give advice to the Minister of Commerce, trade and Industry on matters relating to industry, industry development and productivity, investment, exports of goods and services, operations of multi-facility economic zones and matters relating to micro and small-scale business enterprises. On the request of government, the Agency can as well study market access offers received from trading partners under COMESA, WTO or SADC and advise the government on opportunities and challenges generated. This helps the country to identify its opportunities in the region and plan how it can capture those chances to increase its market share. The Agency also make detailed impact analysis on selected sectors of the economy such as textiles, agriculture, mining, tourism, education, skills training, communication, transport, infrastructure development, automobiles, information technology, chemicals and steel engineering goods, through a multi-disciplinary team.

The Agency is further mandated to establish a database of facilities, human resource and their skills, sources of finance, technology, raw materials, machinery, equipment and supplies with the view to promoting accessibility of these industries. It also develops entrepreneurship skills and a business culture in the citizens of Zambia. It does this by training, facilitating land and empowerment funds acquisition and creating a conducive business environment for MSEs. In this way the Agency promotes and facilitates the development of micro and small business enterprise and other investment promotion strategies in general. The Agency assists in the security from any state institution any permission, exemption, authorisation, license, bonded status, land and any other thing required for the purposes of establishment of operating a business enterprise as well.

The other mandate of the Agency is the undertaking of economic and sector studies and market surveys so as to identity investment opportunities. Such studies are important planning, managing, implementing and controlling the privatisation of state owned enterprises and generally overseeing all aspect of the implementation of privatisation programme. The studies also crucial in monitoring progress of the privatisation programme in Zambia as well as monitoring post privatisation activities to ensure compliances with any agreement entered into for the privatization of any state owned enterprises.

The organisation also develops-multi facility economic zones or facilitate the development of multi-facility economic zones by any investors as well as administering control and regulate multi-facility economic zones and ensure compliance with this act and any other laws relevant to the activities of multi-facility economic zones. In particular, ZDA Monitors and evaluates the activities, performance and development of enterprises operating in multi-facility economic zones and prescribe and enforce measures, for the business or activity carried out within a multi-facility economic zone so as to promote the safety and efficiency of its operations. It further promotes and markets multi-facility economic zones among investors, among numerous other functions.

DOING BUSINESS IN ZAMBIA


Export Promotion in zambia

The Zambian government sees a dynamic economic growth from exports, which could be one of the engines of growth, same as it propelled the development of the now economically advanced nations. The rationale is that rapid expansion of export commodities would provide additional stimulus to growing local demands for the establishment of large scale manufacturing industries and other auxiliary industries that can boost the country’s export earnings. Export earnings can considerably provide a quantum of revenue to the nation for the stimulation of growth and national development. In order to promote exports, government established the Export Promotion and Marketing Development Division under the Zambia Development Agency. The division has the responsibility to market the country’s exports to increase the country’s earning from the sector.

Generally, the Division has the mandate of promoting export and competitive international trade from Zambia and assist Zambian businesses and entrepreneurs in accessing new markets and expanding existing ones for their products within the region and beyond. The division’s strategy extends to assisting entrepreneurs to source inputs at competitive rates.

It is mainly responsible for furthering the economic development of the country by promoting international competitiveness in business and promoting exports from Zambia. In a broader perspective, it is mandated to give advice to the Minister of Commerce, Trade and Industry on matters relating to International Trade and Development through export of goods and services. For the Division to advice the minister rightfully, it studies the market access offers received from trading partners under Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), the European Union and other Regional Trading Blocks, National Initiatives and World Trade Organisation and ensures that Zambian Business take advantage of the opportunities generated by those offers.

The Division further encourages the development and growth of Zambian industries that are efficient in their use of resources, enterprising innovative and internationally competitive. It does this by fostering the creation of a conducive environment for the growth and development of local industries by providing them incentives that enables those industries to thrive in a sustainable manner. The Division collaborates with the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry in ensuring that domestic industries are enabled to grow to the level that they can stimulate development and economic growth in the country for the long term good of the economy.

This Division also ensures that Zambia meets its international obligations and commitments, including those under the COMESA, SADC, European Union and other Regional Trading blocks, national initiatives and World Trade Organisation. Meeting such obligations enables the country access certain markets as provided for in some trade agreements within those markets and thus the economy can benefit more from such privileges. Accordingly, the Division maintains regular, productive and effective dialogue and cooperation with the public and private sector and encourage public-public dialogue, public-private dialogue and private-public dialogue.

Dialogue between the public and private sectors is relevance for policy making as it attracts fresh ideas to development challenges and creates attention to those ideas. There are great opportunities for co-operation and consultation and for opportunities that donors, as well as developing-country governments, can exploit to bring the private sector into the policy-making process with enhanced efficiency and social and political acceptance. This will only happen if account is taken of the societal priorities of different contexts. The Export Promotion Division thus looks at ways and means through which the public-private dialogue can be enhanced and sustained for the country to realise meaningful economic gains from its exports.

The Division monitors the progress made by Zambia’s trading partners in reducing both tariff and non-tariff barriers. Tariff reduction boosts trade as there will be fewer restrictions on the amounts of goods that enter and exported from the country to other worlds. That way, the ZDA’s relevant division will thus have exportable goods to promote within the region as well as on the international market. As the Institute of Development Economies (IDE) puts it, a country’s industrial policies, small and medium enterprise promotion policies, and policies for attracting foreign investment are all linked to the building up of systems and environments that support the production of exportable goods. Therefore, a trade promotion Agency without exportable goods is similar to what Parkinson’s Law referred to as the colonial office without a colony. Indeed, the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry (MCTI) has formulated an industrial policy vision that is meant to improve Zambia’s earnings from exports as well as detailed SME policies. Since then, export items have alternated dynamically and expansion has continued in the recent past.

Initially, ZDA and MCTI had a great deal of room to offer assistance to local companies on export promotion strategies because for many years Zambia’s large corporations were not accustomed to exporting and overseas expansion. But currently, most of these large corporations are accumulating overseas experience and are gradually managing to do business abroad on their own. The ZDA Export Promotion and Market Division is thus nurturing MSEs, to deal with the problems of insufficient personnel, funds, technology, experience and expertise to enable them produce quality goods for the international market. Having MSEs contributions to the country’s export would increase on Zambia‘s earnings from exports, thus more resources for development.

Since private businesses are the ones that actually carry out exporting, they are always the main actors. The Export Promotion and Marketing Division of the ZDA thus have the responsibility of supporting players – creating an environment that makes exporting easier for the private businesses. It promotes export and competitive international trade from Zambia and assists Zambian businesses and entrepreneurs in accessing new markets and expanding existing ones for their products within the region and beyond. The division’s strategy extends to assisting entrepreneurs to source inputs at competitive rates. This way, the division is able to provide marketing support services to business enterprises.

The Division also encourages measures that will increase Zambia’s capacity to trade, including efforts to improve transport and communication infrastructure. To live by that mandate, the division cooperate with other state institutions and the private sector in areas linked with international trade, such as the protection of intellectual property rights, standardisation and certification and sanitary and phytosanaitary measures. This is to ensure that products being promoted meet the international standards. In turn such measures enable the business community to participate in national and international trade fairs, exhibitions, specialised fairs and trade missions as they will have goods that they can confidently showcase to other worlds.

Accordingly, the division has set strategies to through which it builds capacity in all trade-related areas in order enhancing export activities. These strategies are meant to encourage enter-business enterprise linkages, networks and cooperation at national, regional and international levels. Thus, the division participates in trade negotiations and trading arrangements that are compatible with the rules of the World Trade Organisation that remove progressively, barriers to trade between the parties to the arrangements and enhance cooperation in all areas relevant to trade. It then establish a national and international database on trade information networks and disseminate such market information and information on all trade agreements to which Zambia is a part to the business community.

FITTING INTO THE WORLD...as a youth





By John Sakala




ENTERING the gates of the University of Zambia (Unza) Great East Road campus this coming Sunday, together with many other first-year entrants, will be a 30-year-old Chililabombwe mother of two whose story is as inspiring as it is touching. Her story is one of those that bring alive legendary United States boxer Muhammad Ali’s words which imply that great feats are never thrust upon anyone but built from one’s inner drive to succeed.“Champions aren’t made in gyms, Ali begins. “Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: A desire, a dream, vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster; they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.”With skill, Gertrude Funga serves her customers at Chililabombwe Senior Police Club where she works as a barmaid.But, as Ali contends, it is the willpower in Funga’s life that has been overly amazing. Being barmaid is just one of the many menial jobs that Funga has known over the last nine years, including being a house servant for a white man in Ndola and a cook in Chililabombwe.It has been a meandering road for Funga who is going to study for a bachelor’s degree in education with a bias in biology at Unza.At the age of 14 in 1993, Funga dropped out of school in grade nine at Fatima Girls Secondary School in Ndola not so a result of failure to qualify to grade 10 as lack of sponsorship.Thus marked the beginning of a journey down the avenue of tribulation which could have broken the aspirations and blurred the vision of any young woman in her predicament at that time.There being no money to enable young Gertrude continue her education, the easier way for the girl’s mother was to send her into marriage at that still-fledgling age.Hopelessly, Funga became a wife at Dola Hill in Ndola’s Zaffico compound and, before long, was in a motherly way, leading to her first child, Justin, who is now in Grade 10.A girl, Lisa, now 10, followed three years later.After six years in marriage, the man’s job had been done; Funga’s husband had had enough and it was time to leave his wife and the two children.So in 1999, Funga was left with no husband to support her and the two children, and the situation became grim as she could not manage to make ends meet to sustain the lives of her offspring.Listening to the lyrics in the late South African reggae artiste Lucky Dube’s track God Bless the Women, it makes one feel the singer had Funga’s circumstances in mind.In the middle of the night, I heard her pray so bitterly . . . She prayed for her children. She prayed for their education. Then she prayed for the man who left her with her children.We praise heroes everyday. But there are those we forget to praise; the women of this world. They don’t run from anything. They stand and fight for what’s right.God bless the women. Even when times are so hard, they are so cool, calm and collected. They don’t run from anything, they stand and fight for what is right. They do not run from responsibilitiesFunga recollects the dark years of her life: “I had stopped school in grade nine in at Fatima Girls Secondary School due to lack of sponsorship and then I was forced into marriage which resulted in me having the two children I now have.“The man who gave me those kids later divorced me, and to support my children, I was forced, in 2000, to start working as a house servant for a certain white man (Dr Andrea de Angeles) at Villa Farm in Ndola.”It was evident that Funga’s husband had not planned for the two children, and that was lesson number one, which inspired her to beginning doing some voluntary community work whenever she found time away from work as a house servant.“During my free time, I could do voluntary work of distributing condoms and sensitising people on the importance of family planning,” she says who was staying in Commando Site and Service in Ndola.At the back of Funga’s mind was the desire to continue with her education at some point. If she could make time for community work, it could surely be possible to continue with her education.But as Funga was figuring out how she could do this using her meagre resources, the man she was working for was deported, rendering her jobless and without any income to support the two children.“This forced me to relocate to Chililabombwe where I started working as a cook at an orphanage called the One Way Mission,” she explains.She remained determined not to become a victim of psychological and emotional stress, and denial of personal development as a result of early marriage.Realising the direct link between education and income, and education and opportunity, she was resolute to go back to school.She says: “Personal success is a dream of every individual but success is almost bleak without good educational qualifications. I realised that education is a catalyst of every person’s development. So, I strove towards my dream and in 2004, I started going to school at Muleya Secondary in grade nine.”Her determination paid off and she qualified to grade 10 but, a year later, lost her job again.“This time, I had no option but to relocate to a farm in Kasumbalesa where I began to work on the land,” she says.With every passing day, Funga increasingly realised the direct link between education and income, and education and opportunity.From the farm to Muleya Secondary School, the distance was 15 kilometres but, driven by determination, self-belief, hope and conviction, Funga did not forget her dream of completing her education.She would not let go this opportunity and soon got hold of a bicycle which she could ride every day for 45 minutes to get to school and cycle back after classes.This she did until the last secondary school grade and sat for examinations. The results of those examinations have now sent Funga to university to pursue a degree programmeWhat determination!After school, Funga still needed to support her children, which was why she looked for a job as a barmaid at Chililabombwe Senior Police club.Despite overcoming her numerous hurdles, Funga now has the latest challenge of financing her education.Funga’s job as a barmaid has helped sustain her and the two children but will certainly not be sufficient to finance her university education.While she appreciates the 75 per cent Government bursary, Funga says it would still not be enough to meet her accommodation costs.She has so far been to the department of social welfare but nothing tangible has come forth.While at university, Funga is going to leave her two children with her mother at Kavu Settlement in Ndola rural.Even as she ponders over how she is going to look for the money, Funga is able to look back with pride, saying all that she has gone through has not weighed her down as she has always been determined to chart her own course.She encourages women in a similar situation to be objective resilient, and never to forgo their dreams.“Life and people can be cruel at times but it is important not to be cruel to yourself by living a careless life that leaves your future on the verge of collapse,” says Funga who stays with a well-wisher, Febby Kabwe, herself a widow, in Lubengele Township.Funga says eradicating one’s poverty demands formidable ammunition, most formidable of which is education.Education, she says, has the ability to propel one’s war against poverty with surety of victory.Again, the inspirational Ali says wars of nations are fought to change maps while wars of poverty are fought to map change.Change in Funga’s life has been mapped by her determination to make a difference and become an inspiration to other women in a seemingly inextricable condition.(Funga can be contacted through the Times Features Desk on 02-12-617096/02-12-620063).

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

THE ROLE OF THE MEDIA in disaster mgt

Librarry

PREAMBLE:
Scholars say communication and development are like two sides of one coin. This emphasis wants to drive home that the two are inseparable. We can make another premise that communication and media involvement in disaster management is as important as the air we breathe in.
The majority of people become vulnerable and are desperate for media products that can help prevent loss of lives and offer relief. Dr. Frank Press Founder of International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) writes; “Disasters are tragic, not only because of the great loses to the victims, but also because they are often avoidable…”



The process of communication is not as easy as we think it should be. Marriages have broken because of break down of communication. Nations have gone to war because of break down of communication; relationships have gone sour because of lack of communication or break down of communication. The process of communication is difficult in ordinary and daily times, and it is even more difficult in times of disasters because we use ‘words’ or ‘language’ which is a culture by its own. Words are neutral and only get the meaning when one attaches that meaning to them. Hence a single word can have as many meanings as the number of people who hear and use the word.



Meanings have historical biases, subjective to individual personal experience, geographical, tribal and ethical boundaries.



In spite of all these problems that language or words bring, communication has still to take place. As human beings, our task is to learn how to communicate and communicate clearly.



In time of disaster and crisis, the organization or institution involved has to respond with accurate, clear and complete information as quickly as possible.



Definitions:

When we talk of disaster we assume that a catastrophe has occurred in ways that the natural laws of nature have been violated or disrupted. There is disarray, confusion and panic.



The dictionary defines disaster as: An occurrence causing widespread destruction and distress. A grave misfortune; a total failure; an evil influence of a celestial body;

A calamity of great destruction; Hardships and loss of life; Grief; and tragic outcome with irreparable loss.



One definition is, “situations characterized by surprise, high threats to important values, and a short decision time” Another goes as follows: - “A disruption that physically affects a system as a whole and threatens its basic assumptions, its subjective sense of self, and its existence core”.



In industry or production plants they define disaster as: “An extraordinary event or series of events that adversely affect the integrity of the product the reputation or financial stability of the organization or health of the well-being of employees, community or the public at large.



During disaster period, all information needed does not come fast enough or should have come earlier, but nevertheless, let it come and as soon as possible.



We are no longer in the Stone Age where disaster should come as if we are helpless victims of God’s wrath.



In the modern technology of satellite, disasters can be prevented, controlled and bad effects made manageable and minimized. Six months before an earthquake occurs in California, the citizens are warned not only by the earth tremors but also by the scientists at earthquake centre who give details of the intensity of earth tremors and their probabilities up to the moment earthquake strikes.



Disasters do not only surprise us, but we do not know how to manage them or react to them not even plan for them.



Research done in different companies, intuitions and organisations that have experienced disasters and crises have shown that 86% of disasters or crises

Are called ‘SMOULDERING’ crises or disasters that the organisations or institutions are aware of their occurrence way before they happen and before the public find out about them.



The same research reveals that Management and mismanagement caused 78% of the crises and disasters by lack of crisis planning or disaster management planning.



One small example is the use of fertilizers and how they damage the natural powers of the Mother Nature but at the same time help our farmers produce bumper harvests.



This paper will explore ways on how the media can help in the management of disasters.

The media can educate the publics about disaster prevention and preparedness. The media can link scientists, disaster mitigation officials and the public. The media can provide analytical materials for future prevention. The media can remove the myth that disaster is caused by God’s wrath.



The role of the media is to provide a vital link among the people and the state. Kasoma 1990 says the media are cogs through which the people see the function or not of the government administrative machinery.



The media must help to co-ordinate government activities and operations so that both the receivers and givers of information they publish are served adequately. There should be no shortfalls or serious contradictions within the media. The media need to have proper liaison and lack of it could lead to destruction, disaster, and duplication of efforts leading to wastage of public funds. The media should provide the nation with useful important information on the state of the country as well as the outside world.

Unfortunately here in Africa, natural disasters surprise us as if we are still in the Stone Age. It must be the gods that are angry with us. Disasters do not only surprise us, but we do not know how to manage them, plan for them, or react to them.



The media are to provide educational material on any possible disaster that can occur in Africa. There must be a liaison between the officials, the scientists and relief agencies. All stakeholders must work together as a team. There must be an Internet website for each possible disaster that can occur in the region. Educational materials must be provided in all primary, secondary and high institutes of learning. Public libraries must all have these educational materials. Risk areas must display these educational materials.



EARLY WARNING- PREPAREDNESS

The media must provide information-warning signs. Nyondo, 1988 took a close look at the ancient narratives of our grandparents from different African countries. In these narratives, myth, folklore and stories, there are several of them that are related to warning about disasters such as droughts and floods. The Beautiful Giraffe; The Ancient and Wise Python; The Millipede. From these ancient narratives we know that drought disasters are not a modern phenomena. The question each one of us should ask is; How come we have not learned on how to cope with them?





Nearly every Zambian tribe or any tribe in Africa has a story on droughts; Management of these issues should not be something new and more disastrous than the disaster itself.



The media that can be used in early warning and preparedness no longer take the form of storytelling of our grandparents but modern technology that can reach beyond the fireside of a village hut. These modern means of communication systems that can be used in early warning are as follows:



1. Technical Communications systems such as satellites, air craft with

Remote sensing devices and computer networks and other technologies.

2. Disaster sites of communications (These maintain links with affected ministries and publics.

3. Organisational Communications (Communication within the organisation staff and other stakeholders within the country and international)



4. Communication for scientific development, which is always missing in developing countries. Nobody wants to own up to a mistake. Materials to analyses past disasters is not available. We have examples of disasters that happened in other worlds and not in our countries. The western media report on our disaster before the local journalists reports.





PROVIDING ANALYTICAL INFORMATION: AS A MEANS OF PREPAREDNESS.

The media are good at reporting events and functions. One of the negatives the media has during disasters is that they do not provide analytical information on what exactly happened? What is the history surrounding this particular disaster? What should have been done and by who? What are the future ramifications? What is being done to prevent future possible disasters? Answering these hard questions will be of great help in the prevention of future disasters. In summary then, early warning systems, disaster preparedness, analytical information, and the coordination and readiness for responses are all factors determined by people rather than “Acts of gods” beyond human control.

Fred H. Cate 1990 says humankind possesses the means to reduce the impact of disasters to save lives and reduce damage to property. If we do not accurately document and analyse our present disasters, we will never learn to cope up with them. When we die we will take all our experience and knowledge with us to the grave.



MEDIA PROBLEMS:



Negative presentations

One of the major problems of the media is that negative aspects of the story are more news worthy than the positive. Because of this weakness the authorities and all those answerable to any disaster resent the media and give distorted facts.

Avoid negative presentation, concentrate on the positives such as how people are being helped to cope with the situation. What is being done to relieve the affected and what is being done to avoid future ramifications?



Analytical Scientific Materials

Lack of proving analytical material and focussing on sensational information and events will always make us repeat the same mistakes. Analytical materials will help in:

1. LONG TERM PLANNING

2 Disaster preparedness and early warning

3. Reconstruction

4. Rehabilitation

5. Relief and mitigation



Media Causing Panic:

The media have to provide information that will eliminate panic and confusion. During disaster time the human mind is very vulnerable to panic and confusion. The media can provide information on how lives can be saved. What the relief officials are doing. What should be done to cooperate with the rescue teams?



We should never take it for granted that people know what to do. We human beings have a varsity of experiences and influences that affect our behaviour and the way we react to different events and issues.



A recent research done by Fiske and de Certeau-2000 found that the audience to media products are active producers of meaning and not passive consumers of media meanings. We decode media texts in ways that are related to our social and cultural circumstances and ways in which we experience those circumstances.

Taking all this into consideration the media and relief officials must handle disaster with great care.



In both conflict coverage and disaster coverage the media have done a poor job. Some of the reasons cited is lack of training, lack of proper facilities and assigning such duties to junior media trainees who have no experience. These negatives are in both Western media reporting on Africa as well as the African media reporting on Africa.

Corner 2000 says, unfortunately, international media agencies risk no penalties should they act unethically when reporting from non-western countries.



The Annenberg project revealed that most of the news and programs from the Southern hemisphere be it political, cultural, entertainment or disaster have suffered severe misrepresentation and distortion. The culprits in the distortion of disaster news are not just the media but also relief organizations. The relief organizations usually exaggerate the severity of problems to maximize fundraising. The media machinery itself is very complicated when it comes to the choice of news for the readers. A small example of strikes or protest coverage would suffice. The story that will show on the evening news is not the two days of negotiations of union leaders and management but the few minutes when the police will throw tear gas or beat up demonstrators.



Most of the on the spot news reporters called “stringers” are indigenous journalists who are very loyal citizens of their States. The

Gate Keepers (the editors) are different. What the world knows about the third world as Admason 1993, concluded in his report on World Vision U.K. public opinion survey results is “an impression that the developing world is exclusively a theatre of tragedy in which poverty and human misery figure prominently in almost every scene…. This misconception is as profound as it is widespread.”



The questionnaire done by Admson founder and author of UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children reveal a lot of what has gone wrong from both the media and relief organizations. According to Admson ‘s research there is no free health child in Africa, our children are starving to death, out of school and are street runaways.



OUR LOCAL MEDIA:
Local media have not been exempted to lack of skills, structure and capacity to adequately cover disaster news. What makes it even worse is the sour relationship that the media has with law enforcement agents, and disaster management units. The two have never enjoyed a good marriage.



The media and disaster management agencies need each other to perform their functions better. Information needs to be presented responsibly and timely. The media should not just report on what has happened and what is being done. The media should analyse what is not being done and prescribes what should be done. The question we should all shamefully look at and try to answer is that: Why should the Africa always experience hunger starvation massive loos of life after a drought or floods disasters?

Information on drought disasters flood disasters, industrial pollution disasters and all possible disasters in Africa should be given to all citizens free and readily available in schools, public libraries, and the internet.



Critical Media Problems:

The reporting of conflict and disasters in the world press is a disaster itself

Factual information is concealed and distorted at different stages of production of the media product.

a) Origination of the story: Victims of the disaster will relate the story according to their perception and their experience

b) Stakeholders (The people who are implicated in the disaster)

Institution, government, industry, company, family etc. will relate the story to save their tarnished image to the public.

c) The journalists involved have their own biases and experiences that accompany their objective reporting when they are honest and do a through job they face the following:

The journalists are accused of being un accurate giving distorted information biased, un experienced not trained to report on disaster and no analytical skills, traitors of the enemy The question they are asked is not how objective and truthful is your story but which side are you? On our side or the enemy?

d) The sub-editors of the story have their own ‘house style’ of reporting that each media house has adapted as their accepted format and style

The starving children in Africa are not news until we see skeletons on the TV screens. They decide what deserves to be called a disaster in their newsrooms.

e) The interests of the shareholders of the newspaper or media house have to be protected or served. The shareholders main objective is to make the business run and make some profit at the end of the day. Stories that will make poor sales or tarnish the credibility of the media house and shareholders will never be published. All these are problems that cannot be ignored if we want to address the issue of the role the media should play in disaster coverage.



WHAT MEDIUM SHOULD WE USE FOR WHICH DISASTER?
Radio:

Research has shown that during earthquakes, volcano ruptures and other related disasters the one item that people picked from their homes to escape with is a radio. A similar research was done in El Salvador, survivor’s even dead bodies were found with a radio in their hands or in the vicinity. Hence, radio becomes a very important medium in disasters.



However, the most recent research with American kids on; which media would you prefer to have? Internet was found to be the most preferable.



In Africa less than 2% of the population have access to a computer, Internet or Websites. This information should not discourage us since more than 99% of media houses both electronic and print, do have access to some computer, internet or websites. The so-called medium for the rich if properly utilised the information on the Websites can reach the grassroots in a matter of hours or minutes. It is therefore, time for experts on each disaster to:



1. Create websites for each disaster they foresee in the region.

2. Give correct information before the disaster occurs.

3. Give responsible and accurate information after and during disaster period.

4. Provide accurate analysis of the future ramifications and prevention of repetition of the disaster.

5. Provide address and contacts of relief services.



The public need constant education on all possible disasters. The education should include early warning, planning, prevention, and mitigation.

TRADITIONAL:

1. Face-to-Face communication will never be surpassed by any modern medium.

Education and training done by extension workers can be more productive to the small-scale farmer. Than mass broadcast.



2. Story telling: Fireside stories were told to warn people about possible disaster. The story of The Millipede; The story of the beautiful giraffe; The python; These ancient stories that are found in every African language and ethnic group do reveal to us that disasters of drought, floods etc. have been a common phenomena in our history.



3. Village meetings, debates, discussions, and deliberations took place at the Insaka. now popularly known as Indaba. Every village had these forums where issues were discussed openly and deliberation taken. They were effective because everybody was involved and participated in decision-making. When we examine communication models we see that development in Africa has delayed because we jumped the ancient village forum to the modern communication where information is given from above to the grassroots, ignoring the participatory aspect.



4. One very effective mode of communication is drama and plays or Theatre for Development (TFD) in urban areas as well as rural areas. These are very effective especially if they are followed by a group discussion facilitated by some experienced personnel.

ELECTRONIC:

5. The cheapest of them all in terms of MASS COMMUNICATION is radio. In Zambia and in most parts of Africa we claim that every citizen has access to a radio and that more than 95% of the households have a radio-Kasoma 2001. The saturation and access to radio makes it cheaper. We all know that the Internet will be even cheaper if it were available to the masses. The creation of a winding radio, a radio that does not need batteries is a great innovation for Africa where power is limited and during the time of disasters you usually will have no time to look for batteries or power. The creation of community radio stations in Africa will bring great strides in development if properly used. According to Kasoma 2001, the moment Community radio will become a property of the community and operated by the community without interference, development in Africa will make a difference.


6. Television audiovisual media such as slides, videotapes in house production of film can be very effective in the education of the public. They are effective because they engage both the eye and hear.

This media can be quite expensive both in production and disseminating of the product. When making a decision on what medium to use for ‘In House Training’ to prevent factory disasters or mine disasters television, videotapes, or a slide montage would be the best. In this way, you have both inter personal communication and a professional presentation.



7. Film and network video production and distributions. These are very

different from the "in house" production. They are meant for mass consumption. No matter how educational they are the element of entertainment surpasses that of educational tool. We can all recall the many films or TV programmes we have enjoyed and at the same time learned a lot from them. The element that made us enjoy the production and persevere in watching it up to the end was the entertainment value. Because of the Aesthetic elements in these productions we attach the word fiction to them. What we forget is that the narratives or folklores from our grandparents were also fiction but very educative



8. Satellite Communication: The satellite communication has made the

world into a global village. We are able to receive news from all

over the world within a few hours or minutes of occurrence. We are

able to watch the events as they occur - LIVE. We are able to

Access information, research from different universities and other

Academic and research institutions. The new technology of cell phones

has brought another element in the reporting of disasters. The first pictures

of Surnami disaster on CNN and BBC were not taken by journalist

but by tourists on the spot.



9. PRINT:

The Print Media: We must explore all print media outlets to

Disseminate all needed information. The beauty or practicality of

Print materials is that you can go back to it, refer to it, read and study

the material at your own pace and convenient time. However, during disaster time it becomes difficult to concentrate and comprehend sophisticated information. Rescue materials must be simple and summarized. The best print media conducive to disaster information are pamphlets, brochure and small leaflets. It has to be materials people can carry in their pockets.





DROUGHT AND FLOODS

The droughts and floods in one-way or another have affected us all They are part the way the world does its business.. Why on earth should the countries that have 6-8 months of snow be feeding us instead of us being of help to them? One missionary, who returned home for leave in giving a speech to aspiring missionaries, said “I love African weather, where you throw seeds away in the backyard and a few days later they will geminate and grow”. How long are we going to pose to the rest of world as a backward continent living in the "Stone Age" and have no knowledge on how to manage disaster? The agriculture extension workers are doing very well in some farming communities. But we need more mass education to supplement their efforts.

The Mozambique floods were badly handled by the media. We kept on seeing the young woman giving birth in the tree. The media usually does that to call for sympathy. There was no article that ever analysed as to why that flood?



CONFLICT:

The human element in us makes us watch conflict on the media partly as entertainment. Who is winning and who is losing? It is staged conflict, until when we start seeing dead bodies. We all can relate our own experiences on conflict in the region and the way our media have handled it. Apart from factual information being concealed from the media, the media is forced to take sides if they need any information. Any journalist who claims to be neutral is a spy, a traitor.



MINE DISASTERS

The mine disasters have become to frequent and an embarrassment to the world. The recurrences of these disasters demonstrate that we do not analyse our disasters to help us prevent or plan future disasters. The blame is across the board, from all stakeholders and the media as well as the mining authorities.



Summary:

An individual cannot overcome the poor coverage of disasters in Africa.

We need a change of policy. Policy that will compel all stakeholders to react, plan and manage the disasters to the interest of humanity.



The question of which side are you should never arise. Training, and materials on all possible disasters and conflict management should be available to the public.

Companies, institutions, or governments involved in the disasters must be accountable to publics by giving truthful, objective analytical information that will help prevent future disasters

One of the goals and tasks for a media house is to tell the people by merely broadcasting normal programmes that all is well in the country. Media houses have no communication policy in disaster management.

Media involvement in disaster time is implied. For a long time, as long as I have been a journalist, schools of journalism never included materials such as coverage of conflict, coverage of disasters. It is less than a decade that few Departments of journalism started to include conflict coverage and disaster coverage as topics on the curriculum at both undergraduate and post graduate level.



Victims of disaster should be treated with respect and dignity both by the media and relief organizations. State media policies must have clear guidelines on media roles in disaster coverage



END


BIBLIOGRAPHY


1. Fred H. Cate Media Disaster Relief and images of the Developing World:

http://www.annenberg.nwu.edu/pubs/disas/disas1o.htm.



2. Graber Doris 1994 Media Power In Politics.





3. Kasoma 1990 Communication Policies in Zambia

4. Kasoma 1992 Communication Policies in Botswana,

5. Kasoma Lesotho and Swaziland.

6 Kasoma 2001 Community Media In Zambia

7. MacBride Sean 1980 Many Voices, One World.



8 Nyondo, Muzyamba Chanda 2002 Radio Audience research.



9 Nyondo 1988 Analysis of African Animal Stories and

their Adaptation to Communication of

Religious meaning in Television.

10. Philip Lee 1978 Communication For All.



11 Servaes et al 1996 Participatory Communication for Social

Change.




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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

HOW TO WRITE A RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Guidelines on writing a research proposal
by Matthew McGranaghan
This is a work in progress, intended to organize my thoughts on the process of formulating a proposal. If you have any thoughts on the content, or even the notion of making this available to students, please share them with me.
Introduction
This is a guide to writing M.A. research proposals. The same principles apply to dissertation proposals and to proposals to most funding agencies. It includes a model outline, but advisor, committee and funding agency expectations vary and your proposal will be a variation on this basic theme. Use these guidelines as a point of departure for discussions with your advisor. They may serve as a straw-man against which to build your understanding of both your project and of proposal writing.
Proposal Writing
Proposal writing is important to your pursuit of a graduate degree. The proposal is, in effect, an intellectual scholastic (not legal) contract between you and your committee. It specifies what you will do, how you will do it, and how you will interpret the results. In specifying what will be done it also gives criteria for determining whether it is done. In approving the proposal, your committee gives their best judgment that the approach to the research is reasonable and likely to yield the anticipated results. They are implicitly agreeing that they will accept the result as adequate for the purpose of granting a degree. (Of course you will have to write the thesis in acceptable form, and you probably will discover things in the course of your research that were not anticipated but which should be addressed in your thesis, but the minimum core intellectual contribution of your thesis will be set by the proposal.) Both parties benefit from an agreed upon plan.
The objective in writing a proposal is to describe what you will do, why it should be done, how you will do it and what you expect will result. Being clear about these things from the beginning will help you complete your thesis in a timely fashion. A vague, weak or fuzzy proposal can lead to a long, painful, and often unsuccessful thesis writing exercise. A clean, well thought-out, proposal forms the backbone for the thesis itself. The structures are identical and through the miracle of word-processing, your proposal will probably become your thesis.
A good thesis proposal hinges on a good idea. Once you have a good idea, you can draft the proposal in an evening. Getting a good idea hinges on familiarity with the topic. This assumes a longer preparatory period of reading, observation, discussion, and incubation. Read everything that you can in your area of interest. Figure out what are the important and missing parts of our understanding. Figure out how to build/discover those pieces. Live and breath the topic. Talk about it with anyone who is interested. Then just write the important parts as the proposal. Filling in the things that we do not know and that will help us know more: that is what research is all about.
Proposals help you estimate the size of a project. Don't make the project too big. Our MA program statement used to say that a thesis is equivalent to a published paper in scope. That means about sixty double spaced pages, with figures, tables and bibliography, ought to do it. Your proposal will be shorter, perhaps five pages and certainly no more than fifteen pages. (For perspective, the NSF limits the length of proposal narratives to 15 pages, even when the request might be for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is the merit of the proposal which counts, not the weight.) Shoot for five pithy pages that indicate to a relatively well-informed audience that you know the topic and how its logic hangs together, rather than fifteen or twenty pages that indicate that you have read a lot of things but not yet boiled it down to a set of prioritized linked questions.
Different Theses, Similar Proposals
This guide includes an outline that looks like a "fill-in the blanks guide" and, while in the abstract all proposals are similar, each proposal will have its own particular variation on the basic theme. Each research project is different and each needs a specifically tailored proposal to bring it into focus. Different advisors, committees and agencies have different expectations and you should find out what these are as early as possible; ask your advisor for advice on this. Further, different types of thesis require slightly different proposals. What style of work is published in your sub-discipline?
Characterizing theses is difficult. Some thesis are "straight science". Some are essentially opinion pieces. Some are policy oriented. In the end, they may well all be interpretations of observations, and differentiated by the rules that constrain the interpretation. (Different advisors will have different preferences about the rules, the meta-discourse, in which we all work.)
In the abstract all proposals are very similar. They need to show a reasonably informed reader why a particular topic is important to address and how you will do it. To that end, a proposal needs to show how your work fits into what is already known about the topic and what new contribution your work will make. Specify the question that your research will answer, establish why it is a significant question, show how you are going to answer the question, and indicate what you expect we will learn. The proposal should situate the work in the literature, it should show why this is an (if not the most) important question to answer in the field, and convince your committee (the skeptical readers that they are) that your approach will in fact result in an answer to the question.
Theses which address research questions that can be answered by making plan-able observations (and hypothesis testing) are preferred and perhaps the easiest to write. Because they address well-bounded topics, they can be very tight, but they do require more planning on the front end. Theses which are largely based on synthesis of observations, rumination, speculation, and opinion formation are harder to write, and usually not as convincing, often because they address questions which are not well-bounded and essentially unanswerable. (The old saw about research in the social sciences is: "some do and some don't". Try to to avoid such insight-less findings.) One problem with this type of project is that it is often impossible to tell when you are "done". Another problem is that the nature of argument for a position rather than the reasoned rejection of alternatives to it encourages shepherding a favored notion rather than converging more directly toward a truth. (A good proposal is a boon here, too.)
Literature review-based theses involve collection of information from the literature, distillation of it, and coming up with new insight on an issue. One problem with this type of research is that you might find the perfect succinct answer to your question on the night before (or after) you turn in the final draft --- in someone else's work. This certainly can knock the wind out of your sails. (But note that even a straight-ahead science thesis can have the problem of late in the game discovering that the work you have done or are doing has already been done, this is where familiarity with the relevant literature by both yourself and your committee members is important.)
A Couple of Models for Proposals
A Two Page (Preliminary Proposal) Model
Here is a model for a very brief (maybe five paragraph) proposal that you might use to interest faculty in sitting on your committee. People who are not yet hooked may especially appreciate its brevity.
In the first paragraph, the first sentence identifies the general topic area. The second sentence gives the research question, and the third sentence establishes its significance.
The next couple of paragraphs gives the larger historical perspective on the topic. Essentially list the major schools of thought on the topic and very briefly review the literature in the area with its major findings. Who has written on the topic and what have they found? Allocate about a sentence per important person or finding. Include any preliminary findings you have, and indicate what open questions are left. Restate your question in this context, showing how it fits into this larger picture.
The next paragraph describes your methodology. It tells how will you approach the question, what you will need to do it.
The final paragraph outlines your expected results, how you will interpret them, and how they will fit into the our larger understanding i.e., 'the literature'.
The (Longer) Standard Model
The two outlines below are intended to show both what are the standard parts of a proposal and of a science paper. Notice that the only real difference is that you change "expected results" to "results" in the paper, and usually leave the budget out, of the paper. A Basic Proposal Outline: Introduction Topic area Research question Significance to knowledgeLiterature review Previous research others & yours Interlocking findings and Unanswered questions Your preliminary work on the topic The remaining questions and inter-locking logic Reprise of your research question(s) in this contextMethodology Approach Data needs Analytic techniques Plan for interpreting resultsExpected resultsBudgetBibliography (or References) The Basic Thesis Outline Introduction Topic area Research question (finding?) Significance to knowledgeLiterature review Previous research others & yours Interlocking findings and Unanswered questions Your preliminary work on the topic The remaining questions and inter-locking logic Reprise of your research question(s) in this contextMethodology Approach Data needs Analytic techniques Plan for interpreting resultsResultsDiscussion and ConclusionsBibliography
Another outline (maybe from Gary Fuller?). Introduction Topic area Research Question and its significance to knowledgeLiterature review Previous research Your preliminary work on the topic The remaining questions and their inter-locking logic Reprise of your resulting question in this contextMethodology Approach to answering the question Data needs Analytic techniques Plan for interpreting resultsBudgetExpected resultsBibliography / References
Each of these outlines is very similar. You get the idea of what the proposal does for you and organizing your thoughts and approach. The section below goes into slightly more (boring) detail on what each of the points in the outline is and does.
The Sections of the Proposal
The Introduction
Topic Area
A good title will clue the reader into the topic but it can not tell the whole story. Follow the title with a strong introduction. The introduction provides a brief overview that tells a fairly well informed (but perhaps non-specialist) reader what the proposal is about. It might be as short as a single page, but it should be very clearly written, and it should let one assess whether the research is relevant to their own. With luck it will hook the reader's interest.
What is your proposal about? Setting the topical area is a start but you need more, and quickly. Get specific about what your research will address.
Question
Once the topic is established, come right to the point. What are you doing? What specific issue or question will your work address? Very briefly (this is still the introduction) say how you will approach the work. What will we learn from your work?
Significance
Why is this work important? Show why this is it important to answer this question. What are the implications of doing it? How does it link to other knowledge? How does it stand to inform policy making? This should show how this project is significant to our body of knowledge. Why is it important to our understanding of the world? It should establish why I would want to read on. It should also tell me why I would want to support, or fund, the project.
Literature Review
State of our knowledge
The purpose of the literature review is to situate your research in the context of what is already known about a topic. It need not be exhaustive, it needs to show how your work will benefit the whole. It should provide the theoretical basis for your work, show what has been done in the area by others, and set the stage for your work.
In a literature review you should give the reader enough ties to the literature that they feel confident that you have found, read, and assimilated the literature in the field. It should probably move from the more general to the more focused studies, but need not be exhaustive, only relevant.
Outstanding questions
This is where you present the holes in the knowledge that need to be plugged and by so doing, situate your work. It is the place where you establish that your work will fit in and be significant to the discipline. This can be made easier if there is literature that comes out and says "Hey, this is a topic that needs to be treated! What is the answer to this question?" and you will sometimes see this type of piece in the literature. Perhaps there is a reason to read old AAG presidential addresses.
Research Questions in Detail
Your work to date
Tell what you have done so far. It might report preliminary studies that you have conducted to establish the feasibility of your research. It should give a sense that you are in a position to add to the body of knowledge.
Methodology
Overview of approach
This section should make clear to the reader the way that you intend to approach the research question and the techniques and logic that you will use to address it.
Data Collection
This might include the field site description, a description of the instruments you will use, and particularly the data that you anticipate collecting. You may need to comment on site and resource accessibility in the time frame and budget that you have available, to demonstrate feasibility, but the emphasis in this section should be to fully describe specifically what data you will be using in your study. Part of the purpose of doing this is to detect flaws in the plan before they become problems in the research.
Data Analysis
This should explain in some detail how you will manipulate the data that you assembled to get at the information that you will use to answer your question. It will include the statistical or other techniques and the tools that you will use in processing the data. It probably should also include an indication of the range of outcomes that you could reasonably expect from your observations.
Interpretation
In this section you should indicate how the anticipated outcomes will be interpreted to answer the research question. It is extremely beneficial to anticipate the range of outcomes from your analysis, and for each know what it will mean in terms of the answer to your question.
Expected Results
This section should give a good indication of what you expect to get out of the research. It should join the data analysis and possible outcomes to the theory and questions that you have raised. It will be a good place to summarize the significance of the work.
It is often useful from the very beginning of formulating your work to write one page for this section to focus your reasoning as you build the rest of the proposal.
Bibliography
This is the list of the relevant works. Some advisors like exhaustive lists. I think that the Graduate Division specifies that you call it "Bibliography". Others like to see only the literature which you actually cite. Most fall in between: there is no reason to cite irrelevant literature but it may be useful to keep track of it even if only to say that it was examined and found to be irrelevant.
Use a standard format. Order the references alphabetically, and use "flag" paragraphs as per the University's Guidelines.
Tips and Tricks
Read. Read everything you can find in your area of interest. Read. Read. Read. Take notes, and talk to your advisor about the topic. If your advisor won't talk to you, find another one or rely on 'the net' for intellectual interaction. Email has the advantage of forcing you to get your thoughts into written words that can be refined, edited and improved. It also gets time stamped records of when you submitted what to your advisor and how long it took to get a response.
Write about the topic a lot, and don't be afraid to tear up (delete) passages that just don't work. Often you can re-think and re-type faster than than you can edit your way out of a hopeless mess. The advantage is in the re-thinking.
Very early on, generate the research question, critical observation, interpretations of the possible outcomes, and the expected results. These are the core of the project and will help focus your reading and thinking. Modify them as needed as your understanding increases.
Use some systematic way of recording notes and bibliographic information from the very beginning. The classic approach is a deck of index cards. You can sort, regroup, layout spatial arrangements and work on the beach. Possibly a slight improvement is to use a word-processor file that contains bibliographic reference information and notes, quotes etc. that you take from the source. This can be sorted, searched, diced and sliced in your familiar word-processor. You may even print the index cards from the word-processor if you like the ability to physically re-arrange things.
Even better for some, is to use specialized bibliographic database software. Papyrus, EndNote, and other packages are available for PCs and MacIntoshs. The bib-refer and bibTex software on UNIX computers are also very handy and have the advantage of working with plain ASCII text files (no need to worry about getting at your information when the wordprocessor is several generations along). All of these tools link to various word-processors to make constructing and formating your final bibliography easier, but you won't do that many times anyway. If they help you organize your notes and thinking, that is the benefit.
Another pointer is to keep in mind from the outset that this project is neither the last nor the greatest thing you will do in your life. It is just one step along the way. Get it done and get on with the next one. The length to shoot for is "equivalent to a published paper", Forty pages of double spaced text, plus figures tables, table of contents, references, etc. is probably all you need. In practice, most theses try to do too much and become too long. Cover your topic, but don't confuse it with too many loosely relevant side lines.
This is not complete and needs a little rearranging.
The balance between Introduction and Literature Review needs to be thought out. The reader will want to be able to figure out whether to read the proposal. The literature review should be sufficiently inclusive that the reader can tell where the bounds of knowledge lie. It should also show what has been done and what seem to be accepted approaches in the field and the kinds of results that are being gotten.
The balance may change between the proposal and the thesis. It is common, although not really desirable, for theses to make reference to every slightly related piece of work that can be found. This is not necessary. Refer to the work that actually is linked to your study, don't go too far afield (unless your committee is adamant that you do ;-).
Useful References:
Recent National Science Foundations Guidelines for Research Proposals can be found on the NSF website, http://www.nsf.gov/.
Chamberlain, T.C. "The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses", reprinted in Science, Vol 148, pp754-759. 7 May 1965.
Platt, J. "Strong Inference" in Science, Number 3642, pp. 347-353, 16 October 1964.
Strunk and White The Elements of Style
Turabian, Kate. 1955 (or a more recent edition) A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations, University of Chicago Press.
Mortimer J. Adler and Charles Van Doren. 1940 ('67, '72 etc). How to Read a Book. Simon and Schuster Publishers. New York City, NY.