In February 2025, Limpo Akayombokwa moved his young family to a plot along a road that had just been built. There was not much on the road, just a few new arrivals settling on plots and a few more vehicles passing by each day. When the new road opened in Mayukwayukwa, Limpo Akayombokwa saw more than a route connecting communities he saw an opportunity to build a livelihood for his young family. He watched the traffic for a while and made the decision to open his own ka ntemba along the roadside. His store stocks the basics, including painkillers, matches, soya chunks and other necessary products community members might need. His neighbour Albina, who also just moved to a nearby plot recently with her husband for the same reasons as Limpo, buys the basics from his stores when she runs out. Each day, more and more people pass by Limpo’s store on their way to their farms, town, the clinic, or to school. All this started because of the construction of a road in the Mayukwayukwa Resettlement Scheme.

“What made me set up this stall is the growing population of people in the scheme,” Limpo shares. “I came here in February 2025. I was here even as the road was being built. I set up this stall so that people will not have to travel far to fetch basic household groceries like salt, soap and nyama soya.”

The road that made Limpo's calculation possible is a of thirty-five kilometres stretch delivered under the first phase of the Development of Basic Infrastructure in Settlements for Displaced Persons and their Host Communities Project (DBI) — a partnership between the Government of Zambia through the Office of the Vice President’s Resettlement Division, the Government and people of Japan through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The road was built by the Zambia National Service and connects farming blocks, communities and government services to each other. And what that connection means to the community depends on who you ask. For Limpo, it meant a place to build a business that could provide for his family in the long-term.