Why I Worry That Zambia’s NGMI

I want to start this piece with a disclaimer: this is not written from a place of cynicism or contempt. It is written from a place of frustration, yes—but also from a place of love. Zambia is home. Zambia is possibility. Zambia is potential.

But potential, by definition, is unrealized.

And increasingly, I find myself worrying that Zambia may be sabotaging its own future—not because of a lack of resources, not because of colonial history, not because of global inequality, but because of something far more uncomfortable to talk about:

Our culture around trust.

If I had to summarize my concern in a single sentence, it would be this:

Zambia is, functionally speaking, a low-trust society.

And low-trust societies struggle to build prosperous economies.

In recent months I’ve been engaging far more frequently with people on the ground in Zambia—entrepreneurs, professionals, civil servants, service providers, and everyday citizens.

And what I’ve noticed is a pattern.

People don’t keep their word.

Not occasionally. Systemically.

Meetings are agreed upon and missed.

Commitments are made and forgotten.

Deadlines are set and ignored.

Follow-ups rarely happen unless you chase them.

At first, I assumed these were isolated incidents.

Then I assumed I had just had a streak of bad luck.

Eventually, I realized something uncomfortable: this is not the exception.

It’s the norm.

Which is why I’ve started giving a very specific piece of advice to any diaspora Zambian or expatriate coming back to work here:

Set the bar extremely, extremely low.

Not because Zambians are incapable. Quite the opposite. Zambians are intelligent, creative, and resourceful.

But culturally, there appears to be very little social penalty for unreliability.

And that is a problem.

In Zambia, we joke about something called “Zambian time.”

It’s the idea that when a meeting is scheduled for 10:00 a.m., it will realistically begin at 10:45—or perhaps not at all.

It’s said jokingly. Lightheartedly.

But humor often masks truth.

“Zambian time” isn’t just a joke.

It’s a social norm.

And social norms matter enormously when it comes to economic development.

Countries that become prosperous tend to share a few common cultural traits:

• Contracts are respected.
• Time is valued.
• Commitments are honored.
• Reputation matters.

In other words, they are high-trust societies.

People assume that if you say you will do something, you will do it.

And because of that assumption, transactions become easier. Deals happen faster. Institutions function better.

Trust reduces friction.

Low trust multiplies it.

Low trust doesn’t always show up in dramatic ways.

Often it appears in small, everyday behaviors.

You see it when someone says, “I’ll call you tomorrow,” and never does.

You see it when someone promises to send a document and it never arrives.

You see it when a contractor agrees to a timeline and disappears halfway through the job.

Individually, each instance feels minor.

Collectively, they create an environment where no one fully trusts anyone.

And when trust disappears, people start building defensive systems.

They stop relying on verbal agreements.

They insist on excessive safeguards.

They avoid partnerships.

They minimize risk by shrinking the circle of people they are willing to work with.

And that is where the real danger lies.

Here’s a scenario I increasingly believe we will see play out.

Diaspora Zambians—people who have spent years living in places like Canada, the U.K., the United States, or Australia—return home with capital, experience, and international networks.

They arrive enthusiastic and hopeful.

But after encountering repeated reliability issues, they begin adjusting their behavior.

Instead of working broadly within the local ecosystem, they begin narrowing their circle.

They start working primarily with:

• Other diaspora Zambians
• Foreign expatriates
• International firms

Why?

Because trust already exists in those networks.

Shared experiences create implicit credibility.

If you and I both spent ten years working in Toronto or London, there is an assumption—right or wrong—that we share similar professional norms.

Deadlines mean something.

Emails get answered.

Meetings start on time.

And slowly, unintentionally, a parallel economic network begins to form.

A diaspora trust loop.

Deals circulate inside that loop.

Opportunities circulate inside that loop.

Capital circulates inside that loop.

And local professionals—many of whom are highly capable—find themselves increasingly sidelined.

Not because they lack talent.

But because the system they operate within has normalized unreliability.

One of the clearest indicators of trust levels in a society is repayment behavior.

Microfinance institutions around the world rely on small loans being repaid reliably by borrowers.

In high-trust environments, repayment rates are extremely high.

In lower-trust environments, defaults are frequent.

I don’t have Zambia’s exact statistics in front of me, but conversations with people in lending and microfinance suggest that defaults are far from rare.

And that has cascading effects.

When lenders expect default, they charge higher interest rates.

Higher interest rates make borrowing more expensive.

Expensive borrowing stifles entrepreneurship.

And the entire economy slows down.

Trust, once again, becomes the invisible bottleneck.

Recently, there has been conversation about initiatives like “Brand Zambia.”

The idea is to position the country more attractively to the world—to investors, tourists, and international partners.

In principle, this is a good thing.

But branding cannot exist independently of reality.

A brand is not a slogan.

A brand is a reputation.

And reputations are built on consistent behavior.

So before we ask the world how it should perceive Zambia, we may need to ask a much more uncomfortable question:

Who are we, really?

What are the values that define us?

• Do we keep our word?
• Do we respect time?
• Do we take commitments seriously?
• Do we prioritize reliability?

Because whether we like it or not, the way we behave collectively becomes our national brand.

And as the saying goes:

How you do anything is how you do everything.

Every society has blind spots.

Things that are obvious to outsiders but rarely discussed internally.

In Zambia, one of those blind spots may be our relationship with accountability.

We are often polite.

We are often friendly.

But politeness and friendliness are not substitutes for reliability.

And economies are not built on good intentions.

They are built on predictable behavior.

The uncomfortable truth may be this:

Until Zambia becomes a higher-trust society, our economic ceiling will remain lower than our potential.

The good news is that trust is not genetic.

It’s cultural.

Which means it can change.

Cultures evolve when enough people decide to operate differently.

When keeping your word becomes a point of pride.

When being late becomes embarrassing rather than normal.

When failing to follow through damages your reputation.

Small behavioral shifts, repeated consistently, compound into societal change.

But the first step toward that change is honesty.

And honesty requires acknowledging uncomfortable truths.

Zambia is not lacking in intelligence.

It is not lacking in resources.

It is not lacking in opportunity.

What we may be lacking—at least right now—is a shared cultural commitment to reliability.

And until that changes, I worry that Zambia risks becoming something we should never accept for ourselves:

NGMI.

Never going to make it.

Not because we can’t.

But because we won’t do the small things consistently enough to build the big things that matter.