Zambian Perceptions of China, US, and Russia

 Afrobarometer published on 29 September 2025 a survey titled "Zambians Support Open Trade, Greater African Voice in International Affairs" by Edward Chibwill. 

A broader survey of Zambian public opinion includes an assessment of perceptions of China, the United States, and Russia.  Zambians expressed a 51 percent positive view of China's economic and political influence in the country versus an 8 percent negative view.  The ranking for the United States was 45 percent positive and 9 percent negative and for Russia 19 percent positive and 15 percent negative.  The remaining percentages were neutral.  

The percentage of Zambians who viewed China's influence on Zambia as positive in 2014 was 72 percent.  It declined to 61 percent in 2020 and 42 percent in 2022 before rising to 51 percent in 2024. 

China's Economic Influence in Africa

 The IE China Observatory and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in collaboration with Afrobarometer and the IE Africa Program published in September 2025 a report titled "China's Economic Influence in Africa: A Data Driven Analysis."

The report is based on large-scale survey data from 27 African countries and looks at how ordinary citizens across Africa perceive Chinese economic influence. The report concludes that China's impact is neither uniform nor static.  The findings vary by country, region, demographic, and socioeconomic status.  

Zimbabwean Elites Critical of China's Influence in Their Country

 The Conversation published on 28 September 2023 a commentary titled "We Asked 1,000 Zimbabweans What They Think of China's Influence on Their Country - Only 37% Viewed It Favorably" by William Natungimana and Haruka Nagao.  

Two Zimbabwean professors of political science asked 1,000 urban professionals in Zimbabwe in March 2023 their view of China's influence on their country.  Only 37 percent viewed China's influence positively.  

Global Corruption Barometer Africa 2019

The Global Corruption Barometer Africa is published by Transparency International in partnership with Afrobarometer. It provides public opinion data on citizen's views on corruption and direct experience of bribery in Africa based on fieldwork in 34 countries between 2016 and 2018.

The report concludes that corruption is on the rise, many governments are failing to do enough, concerns about the integrity of public officials remain high, bribery demands are a regular occurrence for many, people's experience with bribery varies, and despite fears of retaliation, citizens can make a difference. The percentage of Africans who thought corruption increased the most in the past 12 months live in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Gabon, Namibia and Madagascar. The countries where citizens thought it had increased the least in the last 12 months were Tanzania, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana and Benin.

Measuring Democracy in Africa

Ventures Africa published on 18 September 2015 an analysis titled "Measuring Democracy: Are You Satisfied with the Quality of Your Country's Democracy" by Hadassah Egbedi.  The analysis is based on an Afrobarometer survey in 28 African countries that held 41,953 face-to-face interviews. 

Mauritius, Botswana, and Namibia ranked best on both the extent of democracy and satisfaction with democracy.  Tanzania, Namibia, and Ghana ranked best on freedom of speech.  Swaziland ranked lowest in two of the categories and poorly in the third.  Nigeria ranked surprisingly low in all three categories. 

African Voters Strongly Support Presidential Term Limits

Afrobarometer, a pan-African, non-partisan research network, published on 25 May 2015 the results of a survey titled "African Publics Strongly Support Term Limits, Resist Leaders' Efforts to Extend Their Tenure" by Boniface Dulani.

In 34 African countries, about three-quarters of citizens favor limiting presidential mandates to two terms.  Support for term limits has been consistently high over time and is the majority view even in countries that have never had term limits or that have removed term limits from their constitutions.  More educated citizens tend to express greater support for term limits, as do persons with greater exposure to the news media.