Zambia has experienced dramatic economic growth since the structural adjustment decade of the 1990s.  Despite a great deal of negative impact due to the rapid conversion of the country’s economic policy on growth and poverty, the trend of economic growth since the year 2000 has shown the fastest rise which the state has ever achieved in its history (World Bank 2007a, p.64).  Thanks to this growth, poverty conditions have also started improving, however, there is still a number of people who cannot accomplish to graduating from extreme poverty: in other words, economic growth has not equally achieved poverty reduction.  In this circumstance, one of the Social Cash transfer programmes called the Kalomo Pilot Cash Transfer Scheme, which was implemented in 2004 as a 2 year project, may indicate a direction, which the country should follow for the achievement of poverty eradication.  Therefore, it seems to be meaningful to analyse the impact of the pilot scheme on poverty again, although the sample project has already scaled up to four other regions, namely: Monze, Kazungula, Chipata and Katete Districts.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the impact and potential of the Kalomo pilot scheme on poverty; in particular, it is crucial to mention the perspective that the scheme challenges to focus on people who could not benefit from economic growth.  Therefore, the analysis of this programme may provide another approach of poverty alleviation in Zambia, which is different from the growth-oriented approach.  In order to proceed with the analysis, I will discuss the country’s circumstances on poverty; the impact of the Kalomo scheme; and the potential of the scheme, in order.