The Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) for the development of a Business Directory.
This collaboration represents the meso-level component of a larger programme for supporting business friendly and inclusive national and regional policies and strengthening productive capabilities and value chains.
Speaking during the MoU signing ceremony, ZDA Director General Mukula Makasa explained that the project will improve the Agency’s ability to monitor Foreign Direct Investments (FDI and its various impact channels necessary to achieve country and regional level Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Mr. Makasa added that investment project opportunities will be identified and promoted to potential foreign direct investors.
He noted that in order to secure quality FDI data, ZDA needed to complement available data with a wide variety of data on FDI enterprises so that effective investment promotion strategies can be devised.
“We need to target investors and customize services, evaluate the effectiveness of their interventions on investor decisions and actions, influence government policies that support high impact investments, rationalize the use of scarce resources that are available for investment promotion and achieve consensus among national stakeholders around a common investment promotion strategy,” he said.
And UNIDO National Investment Promotion Country Coordinator Janet Simwanza said UNIDO was committed to working with the ZDA and looked forward to seeing its previous efforts of capacity building being translated into concrete deliverables owned and sustained by ZDA.
Ms. Simwanza added that her organisation would further want to deliver the meso-level component of the business friendly project which was funded by the European Union in partnership with the Organization of African Caribbean and Pacific States.
“The Project remains an integral part of UNIDO’s extensive work and successful cooperation in Zambia specifically through the Programme for Country Partnership (PCP) Zambia aiming to contribute to the objectives of the national Vision 2030 and the Government’s Seventh National Development Plan,” she said.
She further said UNIDO was excited to collaborate with the ZDA in implementing the project.
