Estimates has it that at the dawn of independence we were less than 1/2
million people. Today extrapolated estimates put us at 1.7million people.
Estimated average density of about 125 people/km

Area - about 11K sq. km
Water surface - 1300 sq. km
Rainfall - about 800-1000mm

Human capital - high school? Undergraduate? Graduate?

Foreign financial/cash aid ?
Foreign food aid ?
Foreign developmental aid including NGOs ?

Forest cover - 4800sq.km this includes shrub and savanahs in 2010.
Substantially more even in late 70s. Still waiting for someone at the Dept.
on the earlier numbers. 66 national parks with 34000ha

Agricultural land - 6650sq. Km

Notice that there are overlaps in the area estimates water + forests +
agriculture leaves nothing for settlements. That's understandable from
classification but settlement areas is a significant land use that should
stand alone.

Estimates indicates 55% of all Gambians live in the urban area. If urban
area is GBA which excludes Brikama we are in serious trouble. Regardless we
are already in serious trouble. The answers are in the health statistics -
 WHO estimates of 2010.

Economic data / formal and informal sector.
Government formed the bigger chunk of the formal. Bad record keep if any.
How is the informal sector captured is everyone's imagination - tailors,
carpenters, cottage industries, agriculture, etc.

Social statistic - population, birth, dead, vehicles, passports, ID, etc.

How are decisions made? Have you ever listen to the famous finance minister
budget speeches with impressive numbers of growth? I would estimate an
average of 3% growth since I started following. How then are we so poor?
Why then the economy essential excludes larger portion of our people? You
can ask 1 million questions!

Can we manage a nation democratically without fact based information?
Imagine if you remove a registration place from a 2014 white T/Corolla and
place on another of the same specifications. How can we tell which one it
belongs? How many of us has multi passports or IDs without any reference to
the earlier issues? The same is true for birth records. No record of dead
as far as I know.

We have a systemic problem and not a person problem. It can only be fix by
cultural reorientation and not simply reshuffling the deck of cards.

Are we after all POOR or Poorly MANAGED?

I simply have an idea on the how.

Regards

Burama


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