The Zambia Room: Who’s Working on What, and What Could We Build Together?
Zambia is one of the most extraordinary countries on earth and one of the most underrepresented in the global conversations happening this week.
It is a country of remarkable natural abundance and growing strategic importance.
Zambia’s copper resources place it at the heart of the global energy transition. Its forests, wetlands, wildlife corridors, and river systems are critical ecological assets. The Zambezi River, Victoria Falls, Lake Kariba, and the Kafue and Barotse landscapes are not simply natural wonders. They support economies, communities, food systems, energy systems, and livelihoods across the country and region.
At the same time, Zambia is navigating questions that sit at the center of the global development conversation: climate resilience, economic diversification, youth employment, health and education, rural infrastructure, conservation finance, land and community rights, and how the value created from natural resources can translate into broad-based prosperity.
A great many people are working on those questions.
They just don’t necessarily know one another.
Zambia’s story is often divided into sectors. Health organizations talk to health organizations. Conservation practitioners find one another. Investors have their conversations. Diplomats have theirs. Researchers, educators, legal empowerment organizations, community leaders, and development practitioners each see a different part of the picture.
During UNGA, many of those people will be in New York at the same time.
What if we simply put them in the same room?
This session is for people with a genuine connection to Zambia: people who live there, have worked there, invest there, fund there, research there, build organizations there, or simply care deeply about the country’s future.
There is no predetermined problem everyone needs to solve.
The starting point is connection.
Who is working on what? What are people learning? Where are different sectors encountering the same underlying obstacles? What is working that others should know about? Where are organizations unknowingly duplicating effort? And where might two people sitting across the room from one another discover that they could do something together neither could do alone?
The ambition is modest for ninety minutes and potentially much bigger afterwards:
help the people working on Zambia find each other.
Discussion Group Leaders
- Jesse Rudy is Founder / CEO at Redeem International, advancing justice and protection for vulnerable widows and orphans by safeguarding their homes and land.
- Joshua Kaluwasha is Policy Advisor at Embassy of Zambia, advancing diplomacy, trade, investment, and international engagement that strengthen Zambia’s global partnerships and economic opportunities.
- Angel Chelwa is Deputy Chief Executive Officer at Healthy Learners, advancing school-based health systems that improve access to healthcare and learning outcomes for children.
What to expect
No presentations. No panels.
This is an informal roundtable built around the people in the room.
Participants will briefly introduce their connection to Zambia and what they are currently working on. From there, the conversation will open into an exchange about what people are seeing across the country: what is working, what is proving difficult, where opportunities are emerging, and where greater collaboration could make a difference.
The room may include people working across health, education, conservation, climate finance, mining and the energy transition, land rights, legal empowerment, rural infrastructure, investment, research, diplomacy, and economic development.
The point is not to reach consensus.
It is to discover connections that would otherwise remain invisible.
Who this is for
Anyone with a genuine connection to Zambia: Zambian leaders and practitioners, organizations operating in the country, funders and investors with Zambia in their portfolios, diplomats, researchers, educators, conservationists, health practitioners, community builders, and people working across the country’s social, environmental, and economic future.
What you will get out of it
- A map of who in the Sidebar community is working in Zambia and what they are working on
- Connections across sectors and institutions that rarely find themselves in the same conversation
- A broader picture of where Zambia’s challenges and opportunities intersect
- Potential collaborators, partners, ideas, and relationships to pursue after UNGA
- The beginnings of a Zambia network that can extend beyond this week