Jack Zimba

Alice Lenshina. Alice Lenshina built one of the biggest church buildings in 1956, and attracted thousands of worshippers every week.   A young girl recites scriptures at a church in Ndola. It is one of the most vibrant congregations in the country. A shrines stands on the spot where Lenshina is said to have met God, and where she was handed instructions and powers as a prophetess. In the foreground, objects surrendered by witches and wizards to Lenshina. The church has a few thousand followers. A woman drums to call people for prayers. A worshipper during Sunday service in Chinsali. JACK ZIMBA IT IS 10:00 hours in Kasomo village in Chinsali District, and an elderly woman is repeatedly beating a big drum with a stick. It is a call to prayer. It is the same drum that was used to call people to prayer when Alice Lenshina, a powerful self-proclaimed prophetess and leader of the Lumpa Church, walked these grounds over five decades ago. As the sound of the drum reverberates ...

    Economist Mwanda Phiri is a firm proponent of charter cities.   JACK ZIMBA Lusaka   AFRICA will have the fastest urban growth rate in the world, with its cities taking up an additional 950 million new residents by 2050 through urbanisation, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Cities across the continent are growing at an alarming rate of 70 million new residents annually, with already densely-populated ones such as Cairo, Egypt, and Kinshasa, DRC, expected to double their tallies in three decades. Even Lusaka, which was initially designed as a Garden City for 100,000 residents, is now swelling with three million dwellers, and growing at over four percent annually. And so what is preoccupying the minds of many development experts and economists now is how to match that population growth with industrialisation that can guarantee decent incomes, jobs and decent housing for city dwellers so that they do not have to l...