By Jainaba Kargbo
The National Social Protection Secretariat under the Office of the Vice President on Friday, May 13th concluded a two-day sensitisation workshop on The Gambia Social Registry (GamSR) held at the Senegambia Beach Hotel. The programme brought together stakeholders from various government institutions, and development partners.
During the of the forum, Alaye Barra, Coordinator of the National Social Protection Secretariat, underscored the importance of the convergence, noting that it would give them the opportunity to have first hand knowledge of the Gambia Social Registry.
He explained that The Gambia Social Registry is under the World Bank and Government of The Gambia-supported Social Safety Net Project, and that GamSR is part of component one of the project and that it focuses on strengthening the coordination mechanism of the project.
“Social Registry is very vital in terms of helping programmes to be more responsive,” he noted.
Mr Barra intimated that the Social Registry Database shall comprise of households, demographic and socio-economy data. He however pointed out that different social programmes can apply their own inclusion criteria to screen potential eligible beneficiaries. “It helps programmes to be able to identify their potential beneficiaries and thereby reduce the cost of data collection on programmes for identified beneficiaries. It also facilitates rapid identification and scaling up or trying to create synergies based on complementary interventions to enhance their impact through vertical and horizontal expansions, and by shadow alignment of programmes”.
The National Coordinator also indicated that Social Registry has the ability to receive feedback on household information from different programmes. “This is very important because feedback allow us to enhance our programmes to meet the needs of the people”.
He thanked all those who supported the programme; especially Gambia Bureau of Statistics, for the implementation of the registry; and the Department of Information Services, for coordinating the Public Information Champaign (PIC).
The World Bank Task Team leader for Social Safety Net Project in The Gambia, Mrs Christabel E Dadzie expressed satisfaction at work done by National Social Protection Secretariat in collecting data and record time together with The Gambia Bureau of Statistic. She noted that Data is important for the fact that “having data in general is useful for our life”. She described social protection as cross- cutting and that it includes partnerships. “ I am very grateful in general for the coordination activities that have been launched across to improve the social protection sector. I would like you all to be open and share data from your end in terms of the programmes you are running”.
The ceremony was chaired by Mr Malan Jawo, Communication Officer, National Social Protection Secretariat.