The Clock is Ticking Anti-Clockwise

The Gambia's development clock is
ticking in an abnormal, anticlockwise direction.

Unimpeachable reports have proven contrary to the sing-song that generally, the lot of Gambians has bettered over the years. Infact going by these reports, the beaming smile on the face of the smiling coast has turned wry. KissyKissymansa looks at how The Gambia’s development clock is ticking in an abnormal, anti-clockwise direction.

After the meeting of world leaders in 2000 in New York, USA, where they committed their nations to a series of time-bound pledges, which range from halving extreme poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDs by 2015, the world sprang into action towards fulfilling these promises, dubbed Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

              Ten years on now - less than five years to the 2015 deadline - 20 out of 28 developing countries, surveyed in ActionAid’s 2010 HungerFREE report are reported to have no chance to fulfilling the basic of the eight MDGs; to reduce extreme hunger by half by 2015. These include The Gambia, our mother land.

             Although the "impossibility" is common to the 20 developing countries, 17 African, The Gambia is yet among 12 of the 20 developing countries with a peculiar feature of not only being "way off track", but going backwards" in terms of reducing extreme poverty.

         Apparently, well before the coming into being of the millennium development goals, The Gambia recognised the need to address this problem.

        From the colonialist – despite their exploitative tendencies – to the first republic and now the second republic, steps have been taken to enhance the living conditions of Gambians.

      And like its predecessors, the current regime, in its drive to address among others, but primarily hunger and poverty, designed the national development blueprint, Vision 2020, in 1995/1996. It sets targets to reach before 2020.

      As part of the many devises geared towards meeting the goals set-out in Vision 2020, particularly on addressing hunger and poverty, the government under the leadership of president Jammeh, who took over in 1994, developed strategic documents – first Strategy for Poverty Alleviation (SPA) and now Poverty Reduction Strategic Paper (PRSP) – both with the objective to monitoring and assessing the level of impact of the interventions being made to the effects, for effective implementation of the programmes.

    However, the economic conditions of the Gambian populace have been deteriorating for the past two decades with severe food, fuel and cash shortages that define the daily experiences.

From 1990 to 2005, the rate of hunger rose to almost 50 percent according to Action Aid’s report. Today, 63 percent of our households live on less than a dollar a day from previous 59 percent.

Consequently, according to Core welfare Indicator Survey jointly conducted by The Gambia Bureau of Statistics (GBoS), National Planning Commission (NPC) and PRO-PAG last year, 27 percent of Gambian children are malnourished.

     "Among the households interviewed 37.2 percent have food security, forty percent sometimes have difficulties in satisfying their food needs with 7.8 percent always has it and 23 percent seldom have such difficulty" the report states.

                                              Doomed to fail

Agree with Kissykissymansa or not, a country whose economy is singlehandedly micro-managed by one unaccountable individual is doomed to fail. Moreover, a government that is bent on suppressing the free flow of information, a government that compromises judicial and parliamentary independence is as well destined to doom.

      As manifested in Action aid’s report, Africa’s three top achievers - Ghana, Malawi and Mozambique - have already slashed the rate of poverty more than required and are punching their way above their weight demonstrating just what is possible with strong and sustained political will coupled with strong democratic institutions and frameworks, despite limited resources.

     In The Gambia’s case, agriculture, which is the mainstay of our economy, employing 65 percent of the population, providing for 70-80 percent of the country’s workforce and contributing to 29 percent of the country’s GDP, has been grossly neglected.

    Forget for now, the deafening so-called "back-to-the-land" calls instigated by the president and being echoed in all corners, because it does not translate to the reality on the ground.

    "Nowhere is it truer than in farming, where smallholder farmers tend to face numerous challenges to organisation, such as conflict, lack of funds, and age and gender discrimination," the reports states.

True to The Gambia, poverty is predominantly rural, and for far too many years, the rural poor have been ignored by the governments.

    Many of the poorest farmers are unable to access services adequately and are not organised in farmer groups. The cooperatives and producer organisation that used to give small farmers some organised voice in policy-making no longer exists. Women farmers continue to struggle to access and own productive assets such as land, despite being the major producers thanks to our bias traditional land tenure system. The short and erratic nature of our rainfall patterns have not been supported by introducing irrigation systems for farmers to be engaged year-round.

   More disappointing, the report highlighted, is that The Gambia reduced it budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector by 3.4 percent this year.

   If the reports in Farmers’ Eye, a column in Foroyaa newspaper are anything to go by, Gambian farmers are bracing up for another yearly ordeal of marketing their crops.

   From agriculture to trade, Gambia fell 5 points down in a latest global assessment report of ease of doing business, according to a recently published World Bank report. It ranks 146 out of 183 economies.

   For example, while it cost D200 ($7) and takes 1 to 3 months for the successful completion of an application for Ministerial Consent to transfer leasehold property in Gambia, a similar transaction in neighbouring Senegal is done at no cost and takes just 50 days.

   Going further, tourism, which is the country’s second largest revenue base, has witnessed diminishing returns for the past few years.

    For instance, the total number of tourist arrivals into the country dropped from 18, 597 in 2008 to 17, and 474 in 2009.

   With the ‘re-branding’ of the tourism sector, authorities are upbeat about improving on past years’ failures, yet there are expressions of fear as Britain, whose citizens accounts for about 50 percent of the total tourist arrivals, has taken severe austerity measures; cutting social benefits. This arouses suggestions of reduction in tourist arrivals from that destination.

    Going back to Action Aid’s report, the Gambia lacks strong social protection measures. Pension allowance for pensioners is far below their need.

   In the face of these bleak realities, the finance minister Monday presented the 2011 budget at the parliament amid souring domestic debt stock amounting to D7.8 billion from D6.9 billion a year earlier and a budget deficit of D733.6 million at end September 2010.