By: Sainabou Sanneh
United Purpose in partnership with a Non-Governmental Organization on Thursday validated the West Africa Competitiveness Program (WACOMP) Project in the Gambia, held at Metzy Residents.
The project aimed to strengthen Women’s Economic Empowerment in market work.
The project is funded by the European Union to strengthen Onions, Pepper, and Tomato farmers and is supporting 120 farm field schools in 5 agriculture regions, Micro and Medium Enterprises (MSME) through improving access to markets and job creation.
Baai Jabang, Tarud Director said the WOCOMP program is focusing more on onion value change production marketing and that activity is undertaken by women.
According to him, 98 percent of the people that are engaged in horticulture in the Gambia are women but they validate a document which is talking about gender, and when it comes to gender their hearts pump heavily.
Women in the provinces are marginalized and this report covered part of that. I think justice has been done regarding their research.”
For his part, Dr. Mustapha M. Fanneh, a consultant, also said empowering people, especially women, contributes immensely to the development of the country.
He urged that women need to be encouraged to effectively feel that they are empowered by the country, while he challenged those who are in that sector to bring the women forward especially the ones in the rural areas for a better Gambia.
He noted that a lot of products are coming from agriculture but its impact is what should be checked.
Ngansa Touray, Agriculture officer at CEPRASS stated that funds have been coming into the country through projects but we want to assess the impact of the projects. “I think this is where academics come in. CEPRASS has been involved in the study but also evaluation and cross-cutting issues in the country but due to the political environment we could not do much,” he said,
