November 2004 Basic Needs and Nutrition Basket: Yes, Cost of Living Major Problem Among Households and Needs Very Serious Attention”, Says JCTR

It is important to recognize that high cost of living has serious off-shoots. It means the nutrition status at household level is negatively affected and results in, for example, inadequate food intake with the effect of malnutrition and stunted growth for children, difficulties in accessing health care and education and it also generally means the absence of the various dimensions of well being.The JCTR has long identified high cost of living in Zambia as one of the major and consistent problems the country has experienced. “That is why,” says, Muweme Muweme, Coordinator of the Social Conditions Research Project of the JCTR, “the JCTR has as one of its activities the Basic Needs Basket, which is an effort aimed at giving a picture of the struggle confronting households in meeting their daily essential needs.“ The Basket shows the relationship between household incomes and requirements for basic human survival. It highlights the cost of food and essential non-food items. The Basket is not compiled to be merely a statistical exercise, but a basis for responding to the needs of the Zambian people, particularly the poor whose composition is by and large women.Irish Aid and Joint Country Programm