By Derrick Silimina
Government says the development of a roadmap for leveraging Zambia’s energy transition minerals endowments for economic transformation is underway.
In a statement, Finance Minister Situmbeko Musokotwane has disclosed that the World Bank in collaboration with the ministries of finance and mines wish to develop a road map that will guide the country’s agenda on energy transition.
Dr. Musokotwane noted that while recognising the devastating effects of climate change such as the el-nino the country is currently facing. However, Zambia has chosen to utilize the opportunities that this challenge has presented.
The Finance Minister said the government is already making strides to move the transition to a green economy forward since the country is endowed with many key mineral resources such as copper, nickel and cobalt. Hence, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo have entered into a memorandum of understanding to develop a cross-border integrated value chain for the production of electric vehicle batteries.
“Therefore, we need to understand and strategically position ourselves to meet the demand for the minerals both domestically and internationally. To this end the roadmap will unlock bottlenecks in existing policy that will lead to reforms, identify areas of potential investment and capacity building for all our relevant institutions,” Dr. Musokotwane said during a workshop on the development of a roadmap for leveraging Zambia’s energy transition minerals endowments for economic transformation held in Lusaka on Tuesday.
