By Ebrima S. Jallow
The Directorate of Development Planning under the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs recently concluded an 8-day consultative exercise with regional and local authorities held from 16th to the 25th of May 2022.
The exercise sought to avail first-hand information on the focused SDGs of this year’s Voluntary National Review (VNR) assess the level of progress since the last report which was presented in July 2020.
VNR as a peer review mechanism allows Member States to share experiences, including successes, challenges, and lessons learned, to accelerate SDG implementation through learning best practices. The VNR process is anchored on inclusion, participation, transparency, and thorough review at both the national and sub-national levels.
VNR since its last kickoff in 2016 with 193 member countries have presented self-reviews except Haiti, Myanmar, South Sudan, the United States, and Yemen. The Gambia presented its first VNR in 2020 and is inscribed for the second in 2022.
The 2020 VNR revealed that out of the 230 Tier I & II indicators, the country was able to report on only 78 indicators accounting for 33.9% following a rigorous selection process, in 3 LGAs: Kanifing, Brikama, and Kuntaur.
The focus of the 2022 VNR is on Quality Education, Gender Equality, Life below Water, Life on Land, and Partnerships for the Goals.
For quality education, there were 10 targets, 9 indicators out of 10 were covered with 75 percent coverage. Despite advances in the SDG targets on education, significant challenges still need attention such as enhancing access to early childhood education; improving quality learning, with special emphasis on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), health, agriculture, and special needs at the basic, post-secondary/tertiary and higher education levels, promote TVET and other skills enhancing initiatives to match the job market; and taking measures to enhance access to non-formal education to build a more skilled and productive workforce.
The impact of Climate Change has emerged as one of the most significant external factors hindering the performance of the growth-driving sectors, especially agriculture, tourism, and industry. Premised on these, The Gambia 2050 Climate Vision and Strategy that “by 2050, The Gambia aspires to a climate-resilient, middle-income country through green economic growth supporting sustainable, low emissions development, contributing its fair share to global efforts to address climate change”.
To meet the financing needs of the NDP, the government is pursuing three interlinked strategies: Concessionary financing; Domestic resources mobilisation; and innovative financing instruments. Due to the state of the economy, external support is vital to enable The Gambia meet the financing needs of the NDP.
Gambia is still faced with a debt sustainability challenge with total public and publicly guaranteed debt as a percentage of GDP at 81.2 % as of the end of 2019.These challenges include but are not limited to weak revenue administrative processes such as inaccurate taxpayer registration database and inadequate documented procedures and internal controls and inadequate data to measure progress.