Zambia
Zambia is a peaceful country with vast agricultural lands. However, a person in Zambia has a greater chance of being poor than in most other countries in the world; nearly 68 percent of Zambians live on less than $1 a day, and chronic food insecurity has led to widespread malnutrition. The AIDS pandemic has also ravaged the country — 15.6 percent of Zambians between the ages of 15 and 49 are HIV-positive.
Whether providing health services, shoring up food security or supporting vulnerable children, Catholic Relief Services' work in Zambia reinforces our overarching efforts to mitigate the devastating impact of HIV and AIDS. The agency delivers lifesaving antiretroviral therapy through the AIDSRelief consortium; provides palliative care through the community-focused Scaling Up Community Care to Enhance Social Safety Nets-Return to Life (SUCCESS-RTL) and home-based care through Reaching HIV-Affected People With Integrated Development and Support (RAPIDS); and helps communities cope with the increase in orphans and vulnerable children through Community HIV and AIDS Mitigation Project-Orphans and Vulnerable Children (CHAMP-OVC) and RAPIDS. CRS works to increase food security and resiliency through Consortium for Southern Africa Food Security, Agriculture and Nutrition, AIDS, Resiliency and Markets (C-FAARM), Livelihood Initiative in Support of Agriculture Recovery (LISAR) and Foods Resource Bank. Finally, the agency integrates justice and peacebuilding components into other projects through trainings, reflections and support of programs such as a Jesuit partner's national debt-relief campaign. Since opening its first program office in Zambia in 1999, CRS has worked through strong local partnerships with Catholic dioceses, nongovernmental organizations and health care facilities to achieve the goal.
Zambia's capital, Lusaka, hosts both the country office for CRS Zambia, and the agency's regional office for Southern Africa, which work separately but in concert with each other. Paul Macek has been country representative since 2006.
