Investigating factors associated with continued urban poverty in Zambia: evidence from Kalingalinga township, Lusaka.

This Study is an inquiry into the factors associated with continued urban poverty in Zambia a case of Kalingalinga Township of Lusaka. Poverty in the context of this study is defined as a circumstance of serious deprivation where a person lacks one or more basic need as opposed to a condition of inequality. A mixed method design was used in carrying out the research with a sample of 40 respondents purposively selected. A self-developed semi-structured questionnaire
was used in primary data collection. In analyzing the data, SPSS was used for quantitative data and thematic analysis for qualitative data. The findings indicate that poverty is significantly correlated (all sig. ≤ 0.01) with social factors such as natural causes (r = 0.365), bad choices (r = 0.331) and enablement (r = 0.236). The research further concludes that the poverty in Kalingalinga, was largely associated with psychological and economic factors. The findings also review that the people of Kalingalnga have developed poverty coping mechanisms such getting involved in village banking. For the government interventions, it is revealed that Social Cash Transfer and CDF are the main poverty interventions. The research ends with a recommendation of a policy framework
for managing urban house hold poverty in Zambia.