Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema called on mining companies to prioritise jobs, skills training and contracts for local businesses over traditional corporate social responsibility projects, saying these would deliver greater benefits to communities.

Speaking at the Zambia Mining and Investment Insaka 2026 in Lusaka on Monday, Hichilema explained that the government was already investing in schools and other social infrastructure and wanted mining companies to contribute more directly to local economic opportunities.

"Personally, I don't like this thing we have been cherishing called social corporate responsibility. Creating more jobs and more business opportunities for the supply of goods and services is stronger than building one clinic or two clinics and a school there. We can build schools ourselves through our constituency development plans, and there are a lot of them. We are building. We have been building since we introduced the free education policy, supporting infrastructure, funding the constituency development fund, and reasonable amounts of money. So, but we want to see the true benefits going to the communities through jobs, through training, training, training jobs, and appropriate skills and indeed just contributing to growing Zambia's agenda."