What the numbers mean, where they come from, and how to check them — in plain language.
An independent record of Zambia's Constituency Development Fund, built only from published sources: council project lists, CDFC minutes, tender notices, commissioning and handover reports, and official national figures. It is not run by government or by any political party. One record, open to everyone — government, MPs and citizens alike.
Every project page names the document it was taken from, so anyone can check it. If a council has published nothing, its projects cannot appear here — a missing project means “not published”, never “does not exist”.
It means the project's own published source states the work is finished — a handover, a commissioning, or a completion list. We do not inspect projects ourselves. If a council never publishes an update, a finished project can still show its older status here: the record is only as current as what councils publish.
Our model is built only from what councils across the country have published — and the rule runs one way. If a council published a project as completed, that project was definitely approved at some point: it travelled the whole road, from approval to a finished handover. But if a source only says approved, we cannot proceed to call it complete — an approval is paper, not proof of work. So every project here sits at the furthest stage a published source actually states, and this tracker simply gathers all those published records into one place.
No. It is every project found in published lists so far, across 119 of the 156 constituencies. Nationally there are many thousands of CDF projects — the Auditor-General examined 4,879 in a single audit. This record grows as more lists are published and found.
The two numbers measure different piles. The Auditor-General physically inspected funded projects from one audit cycle, and 63% of those were complete. This tracker counts everything councils have published — approval lists included — across 2021–2026, and councils publish approvals far more readily than completions. The published record runs behind the ground. The distance between the two numbers is the reporting gap — and it is the reason this tracker exists.
Approved — named on a published approval list; work not yet shown to have started.
Funded — the source confirms funding for the project.
Underway — the source says work is ongoing or in progress (sources use both wordings; project pages keep the source's own word).
Completed — the source shows it finished or handed over.
Stalled — the source reports the project stalled.
Completed, unused — built, but the source reports it not in use.
Status not stated — the source lists the project without a status.
One colour, one meaning, on every page. Gold is paper — allocated, approved, funded. Blue is under way — released, ongoing, started. Green is proven — used, completed, recovered. Red is a gap or a problem — not released, not used, never started, stalled, still owed. Wherever a percentage is shown, both sides are shown — what was recovered and what is still outstanding. Bars that compare counts are scaled to the larger count and say so; a shorter bar is a smaller count, not a shortfall.
Allocations come from the national budget — the same amount for every constituency. Releases and utilisation come from published figures of the Ministry of Local Government, the Ministry of Finance and the Auditor-General. Every figure carries its source on the page. Where no figure has been published, the page prints “Not published” instead of guessing. The figures are as fresh as the latest published release — this is a record, not a live feed.
A gap means a document is missing: a council that has not published, a status never updated, a figure never released. A gap is a question to ask — it is not, by itself, proof that money vanished. Audited findings live in the Auditor-General's reports; this record shows what the public can see, and where the public cannot see.
Every figure here can be checked against its named source, and the record improves when better documents surface. If your council has published a list we have not captured, or a project's status has moved on, reach us through the Zambia CDF Tracker page on Facebook — we will update the record, with the source named.