A government official said in order for Zambia to qualify for HIPC status, the PRSP will be used by the IMF and World Bank as a yardstick to determine whether the country can access concessional lending by next June. Zambian NGOs said the Zambian government seems to be showing more commitment to work with civil society groups in finding solutions to the country's poverty crisis, which the government says affects up to 73 percent of the nine million population. The PRSP proposals are more of a wish list than effective strategies to reduce poverty.
Rural poverty is particularly deep, while unemployment in urban areas is endemic.
Maternal and infant mortality rates are also on the rise. The main problem facing the Zambian government, analysts say, is its inability to adequately fund social services. With the fall in world copper prices, its copper-dependant revenue base has shrunk from 30 percent of GDP in the 1960s to less than 20 percent in the 1990s. She added that government decision-makers do not seem to have been sensitive to the needs of ordinary people who have to bear the brunt of these programmes. Chrispin Mpuka of Jubilee 2000 claimed the government's spending priorities are wrong.