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Enhancing the Inclusion of Small and Medium Enterprises into the Global Value Chain Through Upgrading Support in the Mining Sector in Zambia

The use of the global value chain approach is becoming the vogue as a poverty reduction strategy in the word today. This approach requires participants to upgrade and meet international requirements. Unfortunately, Zambia has not been active in its development plans to use this approach which links small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to the value chain activities. The main objective was to determine the effect of upgrading support from NGOs, Government and Private Mining companies on SME inclusion in the mining global value chain. The relevant global value chain literature was reviewed to give insight on how upgrading support enhances SME inclusion. A random sampling was conducted among the SMEs from the mining area to determine whether government policy support, NGO support and private mining support help SMEs upgrade to meet international requirements. The findings show that SMEs do not receive enough support from government and mining companies to upgrade despite the presence of government agencies and mining supplier development programme but from NGOs. The study recommends that government must form a mining commission of Zambia to implement SME policy support programmes, mining companies must create the Supplier Development Working Group to implement SME support programmes and NGOs must partner with the government and the mines to improve SME competitiveness and enable them to be included in the mining global value chain to supply and earn sustainable income.