Mineral and bioresource exploitation for transformation and sustainability of the chemical industry in Zambia

Zambia depends mainly on copper mining and imports the bulk of chemicals needed for academic, domestic, and industrial consumption. The country has never had an economically viable chemical industry despite having vast minerals and bioresources key to the stimulation of a sustainable chemical industry. This paper proposes a theory of change model for the establishment of the chemical industry in Zambia to enhance economic growth. Availability of minerals and bioresources have been assumed as a strong driver to establish an economically viable chemical industry in Zambia. The paper discusses the economic status of Zambia, explains current economic drivers and proposes establishment of a chemical industry as a critical missing link to transform the economy. Briefly a thorough literature desk review was done with cue search words such as “Chemistry professionals Zambia”, “Policy Chemicals industry Zambia”, “Chemical industry Zambia”, “National Development Plan Zambia”, “Petrochemicals Zambia”, “Specialty chemicals Zambia”, “Gross Domestic product Zambia” in the Google scholar search engine. Results revealed that exclusion of chemical industry in policy formulation and implementation, lack of political will in promoting chemistry, underutilization of available mineral and bioresources remains part of the main reason for lack of growth of the chemical industry and serial failure of the seven national development plans to adequately plan for this since independence in 1964. The period from 1961 to 2021 was considered and the 2006 to 2021 comprising the fifth, sixth and seventh national development plans was isolated, and analysis of variance done for the three plans with respect to gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP per capita. There was a statistical significance for both parameters. A p = 0.0004 for GDP and 0.0003 for GDP per capita values showed that there was negative or almost no growth within each period of the national development plan. None of the seven development plans addressed a deliberate setting up of the chemical industry to reduce capital flight in terms of huge imports. Hence, we opine that the chemical industry in Zambia is desperately needed to provide agrochemicals and other specialty chemical feedstocks.