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the European farmers were purchased and redistributed by the state and became the site of many of
the original settlement schemes. Settled commercial farmers and medium- and small-scale farmers
were supported by research, credit, and extension to facilitate expansion of production. At the same
time, because of the equity requirement of the humanist philosophy, the government expanded the
agricultural extension service and the network of crop marketing depots to cover the whole country,
introduced subsidized tractor plowing services countrywide, and increased subsidies on fertilizers and
crop collection over a number of years to achieve uniform prices throughout the country.
C. Schemes for Angolan refugees
Beginning in 1966, significant numbers of Angolan refugees poured across the Zambian border
seeking shelter from the civil war raging in their country; as of 1989, considerable numbers were still
in Zambia. Some of these refugees were settled by the GOZ in the Maheba Scheme of Solwezi
district, and some were "self-settled" in villages where they had friends and/or relatives.'
By 1988, approximately 140,000 Angolan refugees were self-settled.' The Zambian Refugees
Control Act required that such refugees live in controlled schemes, and, in the 1970s, the government
conducted sweeps of villages where it suspected refugees were living to try to move them into the
schemes. The government's interest was limited to those who had arrived since 1985, and earlier
refugees were largely ignored. These refugees were ineligible to become Zambian citizens, and so they
depended on the generosity of their hosts and were ineligible for the subsistence packages (including
such basics as blankets) the GOZ provided to refugees in settlement schemes. Their position was
precarious.
By 1988, approximately 11,600 Angolan refugees lived in the Maheba Scheme, located on a
tarmac highway with good connections to neighboring cities. They enjoyed the start-up packages
provided by the GOZ to native resettled subsistence farmers (see section IV below) and were relatively
well off and secure in access to their holdings. In many cases, they were poorer materially than the
self-settled but were well integrated into the local economy, whereas the self-settled had more material
goods but still felt like refugees. Differences between the two groups are summarized in table 6.1. The
Angolans represent a special case, but one in which government settlement schemes produced clearly
superior results to self-settlement efforts by the refugees, a result the current GOZ may want to focus
on and learn from.
D. Postindependence settlement schemes
The postindependence government objectives for settlement programs were based on both
economic and political considerations. As indicated above, the equity goal in the humanist philosophy
required an increase in African participation in market-oriented agriculture not only for one area or
one group of producers, but throughout the country—a requirement which the government was unable
to meet. Faced with the problem of rapid out-migration from the rural area and rising unemployment,
especially in the peri-urban and urban areas, the notion of settling people in productive
Hansen (1990) compared the well-being of the two groups along five dimensions: (1) economic, (2) integration into
the host society and economy, (3) confidence and security, (4) health, and (5) access to infrastructure.
9 A settlement scheme known as the "Ukwimi Scheme" was also established in Petauke district of Eastern province to
settle Mozambican refugees. The scheme accommodated 25,000 refugees.