A high level meeting between permanent secretaries, senior government officials from departments and other agencies, and the GK Partners have been considering ways to implement a shared vision of the the need to significantly advance The Gambia.
The meeting presided over by the Secretary General and Head of the Civil Service, Muhammad B.S. Jallow, was convened at the State House on Wednesday, January 08, 2020. It discussed strategies to decentralise focal persons for the Migration and Sustainable Development Goals Programme of the NDP in all sectors across government.
The MSDG project is part of the NDP, and many of the activities within it are part of the flagship programme. As part of the GK Partners’ agreement with Gambia government, there is a whole month dedicated to celebrating the country’s diaspora which is considered its eight region.
“Besides the creation of a Diaspora Directorate at Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there has been some pronouncements at both policy levels and non-state actors to realising the set objectives of the MSDGs. Now, it is thought prudent to set up focal points for this programme across all government sectors,” Secretary General, Mr. Jallow told the meeting.
GK Partners have been organising annual diaspora forum for the third executive year this year. This new strategy will ensure that there is decentralisation of the programme throughout government institutions.
Professor Gibril Faal, the Director of GK Partners and the Migration and SDGs Programme in The Gambia project, explained that the programme came through extensive consultation.
The programme has widely consulted the Diaspora, the business community, NGOs and government through meetings, workshops, webinars, and online researche. It tried to understand how the government can engage the diaspora to partake in the NDP in an enhanced manner.
“We spoke to them on the difficulties and practical challenges they face in their attempts to engage with development policies and practice in The Gambia,” he said.
It also explored the difficulties faced by actors on the ground who are on the receiving end of dealing with the diaspora. That is why the programme is developed in such a manner that opportunities and challenges on both sides have been recognized.
The commonality and the shared vision is the fact that there is consensus that The Gambia needs to significantly move towards advancement. It becomes a question of what each actor can do towards this objective, Faal explained.
“Given that there is so many diverse and difficult things to do, it leaves much room for innovation and complementary action rather than undue competition,” Professor Faal concluded.
