The material in the submission was drawn from both field work in Zambia and from extensive desk studies. Project staff visited Zambia in January 1998, and returned to the country in August 1998, December 1998, and March 1999. In the Copperbelt, meetings and interviews were conducted with smallholders, retrenchees, miners, and residents of squatter settlements in urban, peri-urban and mining communities; with community-based organisations and domestic NGOs (inter alia, The Copperbelt Retrenchees Association, The Mufulira Peri-Urban Project); with ZCCM officials in the operating Divisions, Corporate Offices and the Operations Centre; with Town Clerks (the Administrative Heads of local councils) and council officials in several mining towns; and with trade union officials in the Mineworkers Union of Zambia. In Lusaka, meetings were held with the Zambia Privatisation Agency; with government officials and civil servants at the Ministry of Mines, the Ministry of Community Development, and the National Social Safety Net Co-ordinating Committee within the Ministry of Labour and Social Security; with staff at the Environmental Council of Zambia; with the World Bank Country Representative, the Commonwealth Development Corporation, UNICEF, UNDP, USAID, the Study Fund, development NGOs (inter alia, Oxfam Zambia, The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace), and staff at the University of Zambia; and with representatives of the business community and officials in the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions. The principal private companies involved in the purchase of ZCCM packages have, in most instances, been contacted by letter in an attempt to clarify issues relating to employment levels, conditions of service, the management of social assets, and impacts on the wider community of current and proposed operations.