The Informal Economy and Entrepreneurship Training in Zambia: Can it lead to the Empowerment of Women?

The past few decades have witnessed a growth in the informal economy activities as a result of the shrinking formal economy employment. A large section of people in Zambia are engaging in coping strategies in order to make ends meet. At the sometime, the growth of the informal economy has gained impetus in policy discourse in order to address some of the economic challenges that are coming with this transition such as the rise in unemployment rate, underemployment and consequently poverty. The most affected being the youth and, women. This paper seeks to address the policy response to the empowerment of women in the informal economy through the national gender policy and the training policy. It examines the relevance and the contradiction of the policy responses in as far as empowerment of women is concerned. The paper contends that the whole idea of empowerment goes beyond the provision of training for women entrepreneurs. It extends to factors such as deficits in freedoms and choices that limit their capabilities.