Ubuntu Research and Rural Development Company (Ubuntu RRD) is a Zambian-based company that provides socio-economic research services. We provide high quality, scientifically-based socio-economic research data needed in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of policies, programs and projects that contribute to the economic and social development of Zambia’s (and Africa’s) rural areas. We seek to create new knowledge through applied socio-economic research. This new knowledge is intended to contribute to the removal of socio-economic hurdles that are constraining socio-economic development, and to contribute to the creation of material and social wealth (and conversely, to the eradication of poverty in all its forms and manifestations).
The company also aims at developing innovate products and services that enable those at, or near, the bottom of the economic ladder to meaningfully participate in a nation’s economic affairs, thereby contributing to the economic growth of their communities and, cumulatively, the nation as a whole. This is done by running Ubuntu Research and Rural Development Company as an inclusive business model that provides meaningful opportunities for the rural poor to participate in the company’s value-creation chain through knowledge-extension and outgrower schemes in carefully chosen products and services.
Staff at Ubuntu Research and Rural Development Company have been conducting socio-economic research in Zambia and other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa for close to two decades. They know the economic and social context of a greater part of Africa, and they know how to tap into the latent development-oriented data embedded in Africa’s current socio-economic fabric, thereby helping to unlock Africa’s development potential.
In the recent past, Ubuntu Research & Rural Development Company Ltd has collaborated with researchers and various development and research institutions including the Program on Governance and Local Development at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, Michigan State University (USA), University of Cape Town (South Africa), FriedricH Erbet Stifftung (FES) Zambia, Westminster Foundation for Democracy (UK), Syracuse University (USA), USAID (Nathan Associates, Zambia), the UNHCR, Cornell University (with Internat
On October 20, 2016, the Zambian minister of finance, Mr. Felix Mutati issued a ministerial statement on the state of the Zambian economy. The full statement can be downloaded here. Key highlights of his statement were as follows:
Zambia is experiencing slower growth in 2016 after a decade of accelerated growth
The average price of copper between January 2016 and November 2016 was US$ 4789.76 (LME). The lowest price was US $ 4462.30 recorded in January 2016, while the highest was US $ 5442.73 recorded in November 2016.
Note: Copper is Zambia's main export commodity and the price of copper is directly linked to the performance of the economy.