Shareable intelligence

Zambia

4 objects, each built so its context cannot be cropped away. Every one states the scenario range rather than a single value, carries the confidence level and the date the evidence was last checked, and links back to the full page it came from.

Copy a card's link to share it. Screenshot one and the qualifications come with it, because they are inside the frame rather than under it.

Country outlook · Southern Africa

Zambia

Three scenarios, two horizons. The range is the finding — a single number would imply knowledge nobody has.

Measure	Latest observed	2031	2036
Output per person	$1,318 2025	$1,247 – $1,568	$1,190 – $1,813
Electricity access	54% 2024	62% – 71%	67% – 79%
Internet use	17% 2024	22% – 27%	25% – 33%

Growth bands: -0.92% · 1.01% · 2.94% a year per person, from Zambia's own 15-year record (2011–2025) — mean ± 0.85 standard deviations, clamped to its own 5th–95th percentile. Not an outside estimate of what this country might do.

Who this outlook leaves out

A cohort that reaches working age faster than jobs, training places or clinics are built
Rain-fed farming households, first and hardest, in a bad season
A state that must regulate technologies it has too few trained people to assess

2031 versus 2036 · Zambia

Two horizons, asked the same question

By 2031

Household electricity access moves from 53.6% of the population (2024) to between 62% and 71% by 2031, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 66% — a rise of 12.3 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 8.8 million would still be without it in 2031 under continuation — 1.4 million fewer than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Internet use moves from 17.1% of the population (2024) to between 22% and 27% by 2031, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 24% — a rise of 6.7 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 19.6 million would still be without it in 2031 under continuation — 1.4 million more than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Output per person spans $1,247 to $1,568 by 2031. The $321 between them is under a quarter of today's $1,318.
That spread is the distance between scenarios, not a margin of error — and it is a national average, which does not identify whose income moved.
The population reaches about 25.7 million — roughly 3.8 million more people than in 2025, about 15.2 million of them of working age.
This figure is the same in all three scenarios. Most of the people who will be alive in 2031 have already been born.

By 2036

Household electricity access moves from 53.6% of the population (2024) to between 67% and 79% by 2036, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 73% — a rise of 19.1 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 7.9 million would still be without it in 2036 under continuation — 2.3 million fewer than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Internet use moves from 17.1% of the population (2024) to between 25% and 33% by 2036, depending on the scenario. Simple continuation gives 28% — a rise of 11.1 percentage points.
In people rather than percentages: about 20.8 million would still be without it in 2036 under continuation — 2.6 million more than in 2024, because the population grows as the share improves.
Output per person spans $1,190 to $1,813 by 2036. The $623 between them is a quarter to a half of today's $1,318.
That spread is the distance between scenarios, not a margin of error — and it is a national average, which does not identify whose income moved.
The population reaches about 28.9 million — roughly 7 million more people than in 2025, about 17.5 million of them of working age.
This figure is the same in all three scenarios. Most of the people who will be alive in 2036 have already been born.

What has to happen first

Zambia has a National Artificial Intelligence Strategy led by the Ministry of Technology and Science, recorded by the OECD as…. Recorded as approved: it still has to be funded and staffed before it counts as a change in how things work.
Zambia established a Government Digital Innovation Regulatory Sandbox, recorded by the OECD as beginning in 2023, through which…. Recorded as approved: it still has to be funded and staffed before it counts as a change in how things work.
Zambia’s National School of Government has run Fourth Industrial Revolution training programmes to give public servants digital…. Recorded as announced: it still has to be enacted or formally adopted before it counts as a change in how things work.

What the growth model cannot see · Zambia

Commodity dependence

Binding constraint — This, not the growth model, is the operative question.

Natural resource rents were 35% of GDP in 2021. At this concentration the budget — and therefore public salaries and services — tracks prices set on other continents. The scenario question is not whether the resources exist but whether any value is captured, processed and taxed before they leave.

Why the band cannot contain it

The growth band averages across a commodity cycle, which flatters producers in a downswing and understates their exposure in an upswing. Price is set elsewhere and transmits to the budget within a quarter.

What would invalidate the modelled band

A sustained move in the country's principal export price of more than roughly a third. The band averages across a cycle and understates both tails.

Assessed in words and deliberately not converted into a probability. This platform does not publish likelihoods it cannot derive from evidence.

AI evidence state · Zambia

8 of 20 dimensions rest on a document or a measurement

3 dimensions have not been examined at all — which is a statement about this platform's research, not about Zambia. There is no readiness score here: ranking countries by a weighted sum of twenty evidence states would manufacture a number nobody measured.

4 Measured A published measurement exists for this country and has been read.

4 Documented A policy, law, contract or programme document exists. No measurement of its effect has been found.

4 Inferred Assessed from adjacent indicators. Nothing AI-specific was found for this country; the reading is circumstantial.

5 Not evident Searched, and nothing was found. Informative — but the absence of a published record is not proof that nothing exists.

3 Unexamined This platform has not looked. This is a statement about the research, not about the country.

Full brief for Zambia · Open in the atlas · Method · How to read the labels