Zambia's other big local fund has gone nationwide in revised form. The Revised Cash for Work programme — run, like the CDF, by the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development through local councils — was launched in December 2025 and rolled out from January 2026 to all 116 districts, targeting 1,548,277 beneficiaries over six months. Participants work up to ten days a month on community works for K60 a day, K600 a month.
Cash for Work began as drought relief: Phase I ran from August 2024 into 2025 in 87 districts, funded with K2 billion from the 2024 supplementary budget, of which K1.8 billion was for beneficiary pay. The revised phase keeps the K600 payment, tightens targeting and verification through a digital Cash for Work application, and shifts the works themselves — away from simple sweeping toward drainage, rural bridges, dams and other climate-resilient assets. It is aimed at adults aged 18 to 59 who are not on other social cash transfer schemes.
It also carries the same weakness this tracker watches in the CDF: the gap between promise and payment. When Phase II launched, K174 million was still owed to Phase I participants; in January 2026 the ministry paid K28 million toward Lusaka's share of a K119 million arrears bill covering 200,000 beneficiaries. Cash for Work is a separate fund from the CDF — its money never enters the CDF figures on this site — but it flows through the same councils to the same communities, so major developments in the programme will be followed in this feed and labelled as Cash for Work.
Source: Zambia Monitor — Cash-for-work programme revised for 2026, govt targets 1.5 million beneficiaries