Gambia-L:

The e-mail below came from a source in the heart of the Gambian Government.
I am sending it as received.

Ebrima Ceesay

____________________________________________________________________


>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Poverty Survey - EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
>Date:
>
>Ebrima,

Your friend at the Kairaba Beach Hotel is saying hello. It looks like he is
enjoying his Gambia trip. In fact, I am taking him out tonight. Anyway, as
promised, this is the final installment of the two poverty
reports released last week.

In my first two installments, verbatim synopsis of the results of the
Poverty Participatory Assessment (PPA) were presented in which the poor
assessed their poverty status. The Executive Summary presented here is the
outcome of the quantitative approach. Please read on.

------------------------------------

BACKGROUND

The 1998 National Household Poverty Survey Report is based on a nationwide
poverty suvey, which was conducted in March and April of 1998 by the Central
Statistics Department. The study was commissioned by the Strategy for
Poverty Alleviation Coordinating Office (SPACO), Department of State for
Finance and Economic Affairs. The report is an integral element of the
National Poverty Monitoring System which is designed to track selected
socioeconomic indicators at the household level in order to establish the
incidence, nature and characteristics of poverty in The Gambia. The current
study will constitute the baseline against which future surveys will be
assessed.

KEY FINDINGS

*In The Gambia, the poor constitute 55 per cent of households and 69
per cent of the population, meaning that they lack the minimum
amount of income required to sustain a minimum standard of living.

*Over half of the children in the country live in poverty, with majority
residing in the rural areas.

*Poverty has increased considerably - about 52 per cent overall - between
1992 and 1998 when two poverty surveys were conducted, with farming
households bearing the brunt of this increas.

*Wide variations exists in the incidence of poverty between households and
persons in different geographical locations with 60 per cent incidence in
the rural areas, compared with 13 per cent in Greater Banjul and 28 per cent
in the urban areas.

*Two thirds of all households in Lower river Division are extremely poor, as
are 73 per cent of people in Upper River Division.

*Households engaged in medium- and large-scale groundnut production in rural
Gambia have the highest incidence of poverty among all socio-economic groups
at 85 and 80 per cent respectively.

*In the Greater Banjul Area, households with heads working in the informal
sector are the poorest socioeconomic group.

*Although poverty is lower among female-headed households, women - in
particular, poor women - consistently fare worse than their male
counterparts in all spheres of human development.

*Households in the highest income quintile have incomes 13.8 times that of
the lowest income quintile, translating into a high level of inequity,
particularly in the Greater Banjul Area.

*Poor households in the Gambia spend more than two thirds of their income on
food, most of it on staples such as rice and other cereals.

*Most poor persons are economically active in the Agriculture and
Fisheries sub-sector where average incomes are invariably the lowest
across all industry categories.

*Average earnings of men are consistently higher than those of women
regardless of poverty status and type of occupation.

*Child labour is widespread especially among extremely poor households, with
a higher propotion of girls than boys in some form of economic activity.

*Non farm enterprises, as a concrete attempt to diversify income sources,
are predominantly operated by the non poor although a substantial proportion
of extremely poor households are also engaged in such activities.

*In general, the nutritional status of children in extremely poor households
is worse than that of their counterparts in other poverty
categories.

*A mother's years of education is positively related to the nutritional
status of her children.

*Enrolment at the primary cycle clearly indicates a bias in favour of the
non poor and those residing in urban areas.

*Although female enrolment rates are higher than those of male at the
primary level, this scenario is reversed at the secondary level.

*Average annual household expenditure on educaton is highest for non poor
households and households in the urban areas.

*A little over quarter of persons 15 years and above are literate, with
females accounting for one third of this propotion.

*Poverty category notwithstanding, the higher one's educational level, the
higher the level of earnings.

*Those parents (especially from the extremely poor category) who send their
children to madrassah, as opposed to Western system schools, do so primarily
for religious reasons.

*Most poor households, particularly in the rural areas, depend on
wells for their drinking water and pit laterines for sanitary purposes.

*Electricity as a main source of lightning is the preserve of urban and non
poor households.

*Ownership of assets by extremely poor and rural households is low
relative to their better off counterparts from non poor and urban
households.

*Past macroeconomic policies have not favoured the poor, especially those in
the rural areas of the country, with the agricultural sector being
particular hard hit by the removal of subsidies and low world market prices
for the country's major foreign exchange earner - groundnuts

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS

*Rather than targeting existing groups, who may not be homogenous in terms
of poverty status, theNational Poverty Alleviation Programme should target
poor households for specificpoverty alleviation
interventions. The communities themselves can identify who are the poor
members of their communities. This was amply demonstrated during the
Participatory Poverty Assessment study. The programme should also embark on
programmes that benefit the poor directly such as encouraging
diversification from groundnut production, among others.

*Deliberate efforts should be made to ensure that macroeconomic
policies and programmes are pro-poor.

*Government needs to revist the removal of farm subsidies if domestic food
supply or availability should keep pae with domestic consumption.

*In order to track the progress being made in the war against poverty,
several planning mechanisms need to be developed for monitoring poverty
trends over the space and time as well as continuing re-alignment of
poverty-related development interventions by The Gambia's development
partners with the objectives of the National Poverty Alleviation Programme.
The former calls for frequent studies to update poverty-related indicators.

*The impact that the demand for education is going to have on all the
stakeholders, particularly parents who are from the deprived areas and/or
are poor, should be monitored and evaluated.

*The internal efficiency of the education delivery system should be
monitored, especially the attendance patterns of the pupils.

*Government resource allocation within the education sector should be geared
towards the priority areas such as the basic cycle where
the poor are more active.

*Given the various costs associated with education, the poor should
be supported to enrol and retain their children in school through
bursaries, scholarship schemes and similar mechanisms.

*There is an urgent need to expand and improve social services,
particularly in education and health, in order to increase the poor's
participation in and benefits derived from these sectors.

*Emergence of non farm enterprises as a means of diversifying income
sources needs to be recognised and adequate support - in terms of access to
credit, informatiom and training, among others - provided to enhance and
improve their productivity.

*National policies and strategies in the varoius sectors must be formulated
to reflect the priorities identified taking into consideration all relevant
parameters such as geographical location, socio-economic situation, access
and participation, gender disparity and income distribution.

----------------------------------------------------



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