20/06/2026
BEYOND GDP STUDENTS CONFERENCE | Pamodzi Hotel, Lusaka | 9th June 2026
PART ONEβ
What a day. The Beyond GDP Students Conference brought together Rethinking Economics chapters from across the country to interrogate something most of us have taken for granted our entire academic lives: the way we measure progress.
The conference was organised by Rethinking Economics Zambia and The University of Zambia, with support from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Rethinking Economics International (REI), and Rethinking Economics for Africa (REFA). βΊοΈπ
We started with an uncomfortable truth. GDP was never built to measure human welfare, only output. When we treat it as the headline number for national progress, poverty depth, employment quality, environmental degradation, and inequality all slip out of the conversation. The story it tells is incomplete, and we have been making decisions off that incomplete story for decades.βπΏ
Comprehensive Wealth gave us a sharper question to ask instead: is a nation's total stock of wealth growing or being quietly depleted? By accounting for Human, Social, Produced, Financial, and Natural Capital, it catches what GDP cannot, a country can post strong growth on paper while its forests disappear and its people are left underinvested in.π
Proud to have stood alongside fellow Rethinking Economics chapters from Copperbelt University, Kabwe Institute of Technology, Kwame Nkrumah University, Mulungushi University, University of Lusaka, ZICAS, and our own University of Zambia.ππ
Special recognition goes to these powerful and incredible individuals:
Livia Bizikova - IISD
Edward Chuma - PICOTEAM
BHIM ADHIKARI - IDRC
Emmanuel Ndhlovu - University of Johansburg
Joe Ramaru - PICOTEAM
Lydia Chikumbi - The University of Zambia
Amaarah Garda - Rethinking Economics for Africa