The Zambian Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Isaac Mwanza has told the 2026 Forum on Global Human Rights Governance in Beijing that Zambia is advancing development by placing human rights at its core.
Speaking on “Human Rights in Zambia’s Development,” Mwanza said President Hakainde Hichilema’s 2024 endorsement of China’s 10 Partnership Actions at FOCAC set the direction for development grounded in the rights to education, health, food, shelter, energy, culture, and a clean environment.
“Development must be measured by jobs created, infrastructure built, poverty reduced, and quality of life improved, while upholding rights and sovereignty,” he said.
He told the gathering that the newly assented Education law to codify free education in Zambia was a landmark step.
“Education is the engine of national transformation. By entrenching free education in law, Zambia has made a strategic investment in its most valuable resource – its people,” he said.
Mwanza said the assented Act “liberates the child who once stood outside the classroom because their parents could not afford school fees.
“It restores hope to families trapped by poverty. It reopens doors that economic hardship had closed. Most importantly, it affirms that a child’s future should never be determined by the size of a parent’s income,” he said.
Mwanza also highlighted the National Health Insurance Management Authority’s expansion of access to treatment and medicines, supported by partners including China, the UK, and the US.
He stated that on the economic front, the Children’s Code Act of 2022 and labour laws aim to protect workers and children while ensuring investment remains stable and sustainable.
Mwanza urged a universal approach to accountability: “Accountability must be based on conduct, not nationality… Human rights must be universal or they cease to be human rights.”
He added that economic growth and human rights are not competing objectives but complementary goals, that is the future Zambia seeks.
During his visit to China, Mwanza toured Chengdu City, where he appreciated the 2,000-year-old Dujiangyan irrigation system, villages preserved in their original form alongside those transformed under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and China’s advances in technology shaping the future.
