Hi Ebrima,
Thanks for your assessment, however I have a few issues
that I want to raise with you. Let me clarify myself, I am
not speaking on or behalf of the government but as a
someone familiar with the operations of policy formulation
in Gambia. So these observations are mine.
The factual accuracy of your discussion cannot be disputed,
but by making a generalized comparison of Gambia with the
developing countries might bias your analysis. The reason
is simple, you are comparing Gambia, a low income country
with countries classified as lower and upper middle income
countries with GDP per capita of $3000 to $10000 as
opposed to our $350. I think it would have been more
accurate and informative if your comparison was based on
sub saharan africa or by looking at the trends in the
Gambia over the years i.e. compare economic and social
indicators 5 years before and 5 years after 1994 for the
obvious reason.
As you mentioned to saul, the poverty figures should not
add up as they address national poverty (people living US$2
per day) and food poverty (people who cannot buy or eat
2700 calories per day).
Your article shows the challenges confronting the Gambian
people at the dawn of the 21 century. That is reducing
POVERTY. The figures make dismal reading. You have to
realize and always focus at the back of our minds that
Gambia is a country with limited natural resource and
underdeveloped human capital base since independence. This
has been a constraint both for the diversification and
growth of the economy. Let me concentrate on the social
sectors of health and education.
You mentioned that the Gambia's health indicators are very,
very low among the lowest in Africa. I want to disagree
with you on this point. I can show you figures that
indicate the life expectancy at birth in Gambia at 53 years
and for sub saharan africa(SSA) at 51 years. Infant
mortality rates for the Gambia at 78 per 1000 live births
is also lower than SSA at 91 per 1000 live births. Access
to save water in Gambia is 50% of the population as opposed
to 47% for SSA. Infact the Gambia has one of the best
immunization programs for children under 12 months in
Africa about 97%. So all is not doom and gloom. Of course
it is natural that we want more to be done but i believe
that we should acknowledge the positives as well as
criticize the shortcomings in any system of government.
The population growth rate of 4% is very alarming for a
country the size of Gambia. The only way to solve this
problem is by family planning and nothing should be done to
undermine efforts at promoting family planning. If current
trends continue, the consequences will be disastrous and
the people whom we want to uplift their living standards
will forever live in perpetual poverty. The pop. growth rate
is a serious constraint for the economy and reducing the
high fertility rate of 6 children/ woman is needed. There
are organizations (NGO), the national population council and
women organizations that aim at empowering women and
discourage the practice of little girls getting married at
an early age - disrupting their schooling and living them
with no skills. That's why i welcome the free scholarships
for girls in region 6 where the female enrollment rate is
the lowest.
On education, you did not mention anything about the
national education policy (1998-2003) that targets a 98%
gross enrollment in primary education (grades 1-6) and 70%
enrollment (grades 7-9). These figures are based on the
current trend. In 1990 the primary enrollment was 63%
increasing to 77% in 1996 (incidentally this is the average
for sub sahara africa for secondary schools). We have to
realize that since 1966 we started from a low base in terms
of health and education facilities and there has been
improvements in school enrollment over the years. You also
fail to show that budgetary allocation to education has
gone up from 15% of GDP in 1990 to 22% of GDP in 1998.
Still i agree that more needs to be done as the student
teacher ratio is low and inadequate resources are being
spent on instructional materials. I think NGOs,
philanthropist and GESO have a role to play here (by the
way send me mail to contribute to GESO).
As far as the debt issue is concerned, your observations
are noted but the total figure you gave is the stock of
external debt accumulated since the 1970s. What you could
have shown is the increase in the stock of debt since 1994.
Of course the burden is high as we are spending 33% of
government expenditure in serving our debt. Imagine what
33% of expenditure (roughly D300 million) could do for the
health and education sectors. The Gambia cannot avoid
contracting external debt, but we have to be more
prudent,that's why we need grants and loans on very
concessional terms from the international community.
So the tasks and challenges facing the government are
unlimited. Even in UK the government knows that you do not
get results by waving the magic stick. If anything your
article has shown that moving the Gambia from a low to a
middle income country is very formidable task.
let me conclude by saying that pluralistic
democracy,politics, institutions, and policies are the key
to sustainable development. The Gambian people have gone
through five year development plans, structural adjustment
programs, program for sustained development, gateway
project, and now vision 2020, but still the income per head
of the average Gambian is US$350 well below the sub saharan
africa average.
basil
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