Andrew Shepherd
Author Biography
Andrew Shepherd is Director of the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network, hosted at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), where he is an Honorary Associate. He has now led the production of four international Chronic Poverty Reports, the latest (2023) on Pandemic Poverty, and the previous one (2019) on Growth. Previously Director of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, he has also worked on several large evaluations of anti-poverty policies and programmes. He was previously a Director of Programmes at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), London and a staff member of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Sudan, as well as a senior lecturer at Birmingham University.
Vidya Diwakar
Author Biography
Vidya Diwakar is the Deputy Director of the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), where she leads a suite of mixed-methods studies on poverty dynamics and resilience. Her work focuses on gender-disaggregated drivers of poverty escapes, conflict and intersecting crises as drivers of poverty traps, and the role of multisectoral programming in supporting poverty reduction. Vidya has led a range of large multi-country policy-oriented research and evaluation studies on poverty dynamics in East, West, and Southern Africa, and South and Southeast Asia for international organisations and bilateral aid agencies.
Mary Lubungu
Author Biography
Mary Lubungu is an agricultural economist with a PhD in Agricultural Sciences (University of Hohenheim, Germany), an MSc in Agricultural and Applied Economics (University of Malawi), and a BSc in Agricultural Sciences (Agricultural Economics) (University of Zambia). She has 20 years’ experience in agriculture and rural development, including 15 years in research, focusing on poverty dynamics, livestock development, and value chain analysis. She is currently an independent consultant (Research Fellow) affiliated with the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI). Her recent publications include ‘Understanding the Drivers of Household Hunger and Resilience in Zambia: Implications for Nutrition Programming’ (2026, Agrekon).
Richard Bwalya
Author Biography
Richard Bwalya is an economist, lecturer at the University of Zambia, and policy consultant with extensive experience in development and agricultural economics. He holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics and an MSc in Applied Agricultural Economics. His research focuses on poverty, food security, nutrition, and agricultural policy using applied econometric and mixed-methods approaches. His recent publications include work on household food security and infant feeding practices, health-care-seeking behaviour, and savings groups and rural wellbeing. He has led multiple evaluations for development partners in Zambia.
Antony Chapoto
Author Biography
Antony Chapoto is an agricultural and development economist with extensive experience in African agriculture, environment, and food systems. He is the Executive Director, Africa Network of Agricultural Policy Research Institutes (ANAPRI) Secretariat. Previously, he served as Research and Innovation Director, Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI) (2014–2023) and played a key role in its establishment. He also worked at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Michigan State University. His research focuses on food systems transformation, climate change, agricultural productivity, and policy. He holds a PhD (Michigan State University), a master’s degree (University of Zimbabwe), and a bachelor’s degree (Africa University).
Lucia Corta
Author Biography
Lucia da Corta is a development economist and Research Associate at the Chronic Poverty Advisory Network (CPAN), hosted at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). She was previously a Research Associate at the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). She has over twenty years’ experience across Africa and South Asia. Lucia specialises in qualitative methodologies for research and policy/programme evaluation, focusing on poverty, gender, and youth dynamics under rapid climatic, economic, and political change. She co-developed IDS’s professional course, ‘Mixed Methods Research and Evaluation: Addressing Poverty and Inequality Dynamics in a Complex, Fast-Changing World’. Recent publications include Rural Pathways Out of Poverty (2025, IDS).
Marta Eichsteller
Author Biography
Marta Eichsteller is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at University College Dublin, specialising in the qualitative exploration of social inequalities spanning local, national, and global contexts. With a wealth of experience, she has conducted impactful projects, from exploring local civil society engagement in the UK to evolving European identities and the persistent fight against poverty in African and Asian regions. Marta’s distinctive focus on biographical aspects of social transformation lends depth to her work, offering profound insights into the human stories behind societal shifts. Her expertise enriches the field of social inquiry, contributing to a deeper understanding of the intricacies of chronic poverty dynamics.
Marja Hinfelaar
Author Biography
Marja Hinfelaar is the Director of Research and Programmes at the Southern African Institute for Policy and Research (SAIPAR), Lusaka, Zambia. Marja received her PhD in History in 2001 from Utrecht University, the Netherlands, where her dissertation focused on the history of women’s organisations in Zimbabwe. She is the co-editor of One Zambia, Many Histories: Towards a History of Post-Colonial Zambia (2008, Brill), co-author of Governing Extractive Industries: Politics, Histories, Ideas (2018, Oxford University Press), and co-editor of Democracy and Electoral Politics in Zambia (2020, Brill). Marja has been resident in Zambia since 1997
Arthur Monze Moonga
Author Biography
Arthur Monze Moonga is a public health and development researcher with over 12 years’ experience in mixed-methods research, specialising in health systems strengthening, social systems, governance, and environmental sustainability. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for Economic and Social Research (CESOR), University of Zambia, within the Social Systems, Governance and Environment Cluster, and Managing Associate at the Institute of Research and Development (IRED), Zambia. His work spans poverty dynamics, HIV prevention, and climate resilience. He is co-author of Financial Inclusion and CSA Adoption – Enhancing the Resilience of Smallholder Farmers to Climate Change in Zambia (2025, Institute of Development Studies).
Brian Mulenga
Author Biography
Brian Mulenga holds a PhD in Agricultural Economics with 12 years’ experience in agri-food systems policy research and analysis. Prior to his current position as Executive Director for the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI), he was the Research Director (2024–2025) and Research Fellow (2019–2023) at IAPRI. His work is transboundary covering the southern and east African regions. It focuses mainly on agricultural markets and trade, climate change and natural resources management, and agricultural diversification and productivity. He applies quantitative and qualitative research tools to generate data and evidence to inform the design and implementation of pro-poor policies and programmes.
Kate Pruce
Author Biography
Kate Pruce is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). She has over ten years’ experience conducting research on social protection with a political economy lens, working extensively in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Zambia, as well as in the Asia-Pacific region. Kate has consulted for agencies including the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), and the Embassy of Ireland in a research and advisory role covering social protection-related topics such as cash plus, school feeding, food security, and nutrition-sensitive social protection.
Joseph Simbaya
Author Biography
Dr Joseph Simbaya (late) was a respected Zambian social researcher and medical anthropologist whose work bridged academic inquiry and policy practice. He served as Director of the Institute of Economic and Social Research (INESOR) at the University of Zambia, where he played a central role in advancing applied, policy-relevant research. Trained at the University of Zambia and the University of Amsterdam, his research focused on health systems, gender, HIV/AIDS, and poverty dynamics. He collaborated widely with national and international partners, and was a committed teacher and mentor, remembered for his humility, intellectual rigour, and dedication to public service
The past ten years have witnessed a greater intensity of climate-related crises in Zambia. Alongside this, the number of people living in poverty in Zambia continues to grow. This article investigates key drivers of resilience to poverty and to climate change in Zambia, and as part of this, what the key institutional responses are and policy opportunities to strengthen climate resilience alongside resilience to poverty. It relies on mixed-methods data from 2010 to the present in Zambia: the Rural Agricultural Livelihoods Survey panel (2010–2019), the Living Conditions Monitoring Survey (2022), and qualitative data collection across nine provinces in Zambia (2019–2024). Study findings indicate that climate resilience is in great part built on a foundation of escaping poverty and developing capacities to remain out of poverty. However, degrees of climate resilience can be enabled at lower levels of wellbeing through policies that support climate-smart agriculture and economic diversification.