With 250-350K estimates at independence population density will be 23-32 people/sq. km. Just imagine the current ratio of 125 people sharing 1sq. Km for livelihoods - housing, farming, livestock rearing, roads/access paths, mosques, churches, schools, etc. Is that enough a room? We have serious works to do - let's start! Burama On Thursday, May 29, 2014, Burama Jammeh <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > 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 > ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤ To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] ¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤¤