Abu Dhabi tomorrow, New York today: Hichilema takes the Grow Zambia pitch to the Gulf as Haimbe addresses the UN

The President is going to the Gulf, and the machinery around the trip says the government means business in the literal sense. President Hakainde Hichilema undertakes a working visit to the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday and Wednesday, at the invitation of UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan — a visit announced on Sunday by Acting Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Situmbeko Musokotwane, standing in while the substantive minister, Mulambo Haimbe, completes a week of work at the United Nations in New York.

The programme, as outlined by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is built around conversion — turning commitments into contracts. An official bilateral meeting with Sheikh Mohamed, who is also Ruler of Abu Dhabi, is expected to conclude with the signing of memoranda of understanding. A Zambia-UAE Business and Investment Forum, a presidential engagement with Emirati business leaders and a meeting with the Zambian community in the UAE fill out the schedule. The sectors named are the Grow Zambia Agenda's usual suspects — mining and mineral value addition, agriculture, energy, infrastructure, transport and logistics, tourism and healthcare — alongside trade facilitation and an effort to conclude negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.

The relationship has been warming on paper for three years. Zambia opened its Abu Dhabi embassy in 2023; the UAE deployed its first resident ambassador to Lusaka this month. What Lusaka wants from Abu Dhabi is investment at a scale the domestic budget cannot produce; what Abu Dhabi typically wants is minerals, food security and logistics corridors. The ministry's statement speaks of reviewing progress on agreed bilateral commitments and addressing "outstanding implementation gaps" — diplomatic phrasing for deals announced that have not yet become projects.

New York, meanwhile, gets the political half of the message. Mr Haimbe is due to deliver Zambia's national statement at the 81st UN General Assembly's General Debate today, speaking for the President under the session's theme of restoring trust in a United Nations that delivers. The delegation's week has been a study in parallel tracks: campaigning for a Human Rights Council seat in the 13 October vote, defending the cancellation of six passports, sitting in the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group — where Zambia is deputy chair — and insisting, in the statement's expected refrain, that Zambia's commitment to constitutionalism and human rights is intact. The same record the opposition calls repression is, in the government's telling, the rule of law doing its work. This week, both cases are being prosecuted abroad at once — one to investors, one to diplomats. The audience overlap is not zero, and Lusaka knows it.

Sources: Mwebantu, "HH to undertake working visit to UAE" (27 Sep 2026), citing a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation statement; Mwebantu, "Zambia takes Grow Zambia agenda to United Nations as UNGA81 general debate opens" (27 Sep 2026); Mwebantu on the delegation's mandate (20 Sep 2026).