Zambian think-tank to conduct review to further tap into BRI opportunities

A local think-tank said on Monday that it intends to carry out a review of what Zambia has done so far in benefiting from the opportunities presented by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Bernadette Deka-Zulu, executive director of the Policy Monitoring and Research Center, said the think-tank will work with other partners to conduct an assessment of what Zambia was doing and has done to benefit from the BRI.

"We as a think-tank we are now going to embark on a very serious mission to actually research on what Zambia is doing as a signatory to the BRI," she said.

"We are going to look for partners to see how we can measure these achievements, starting from the day we appended our signatures and moving forward to today. We want to see what we have done," she added.

She said the review will involve carrying out some monitoring and evaluation in specific ministries on what programs have been done in line with the BRI and on whether the programs were yielding desired results.

According to her, China has already shown commitment and seriousness in the BRI process and that it was up to individual partner countries to tap into the initiative and come up with programs that will yield desired benefits.

Zambia, she added, should ensure that it actualizes the opportunities as a signatory to the BRI by coming up with concrete projects.