JOHANNESBURG—Zambia and the International Monetary Fund begin discussing a loan program and debt relief for Africa’s first pandemic-era sovereign default on Thursday, with a controversial mining deal, an election, and a mountain of debt to China looming over the talks. Several African nations are reeling under precarious debt burdens that worsened during the pandemic, and the southern African copper producer is viewed by many as a complex test case for international efforts to tackle the looming crisis. An IMF team will hold virtual meetings with Zambian officials over three weeks after Lusaka requested in December a program with the Fund and in January debt relief under a new common framework by the Group of 20 major economies, designed to help the world’s poorest countries tackle their debt burden. Together with Zambia and the World Bank, the IMF will draft a debt sustainability analysis that will form the basis for both. …