Basil you wrote <<<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.>>>>> Ebrima thank you for summing up the 5yrs of AFPRC. I must say that the weather in Olso is very hostile to me:) But i am cooping with it, i think it does not like Londoners:) On a more seious note, yours and the reply from Jones are a food for taught. Reading through the responce of the brother,i want to believe that the meaning of development policy needs to be redifine.Much of that which is said in your article is about the failure of development policy. THe reason why this question keeps on coming is that all these plans, projects, polices mentioned by Basil in the above quotation simply becomes an unrealistic goals to acheive for such a government .The goals set are as usual to satisfy policy makers and not the ordinary people. Infact most of these failures have always been identify, sometimes even too late, but it is not a question solely of repairing holes in the development bucket but learning from the mending so that it will not happen again and or lead us to other levels. As you rightly put it, the sectoral and spatial issues which are crucially important and the present problems frequently compounded by in apropriate polices such as those which led to the misuse of resources should be of great concern. I also believe that despite the resource constraint at home the government is also suffering from their own administrative inefficiencies a product which some might want to attribute to poverty and the stage of development at which we find our selves. As your figures show there are a large number of people who are in a serious condition of poverty and who can see little prospect of improvement in their future. It is a condition which cannot await the dubious benefits of AFPRC so called revolution. I believe the test of any development strategy or policy is the extent to which it helps or hinder in meeting the basic needs of majority of people. I blieve that it should be part of our goal to avoid the waste of resources in policies that don't work or are not even appropriate for our home condition. Agriculture is the very fabric of rural society and often the keeper of traditional values, require a positive development stimulus not in an isolated, singular way but in conjuction with other developments in the country side. THe rural sector cannot be left stranded to accommodate change and development as best it can. Our national resources, i mean the little we have should be put in proper use and those leading our nation should make sure that their life style is affordable in the Gambia and within the gambian economy. It should not be a life style that is in contradiction with the needs of our nation. I think it will be of great help if Basil and other members on the L shed more light on the reasons for the failures of the policies mentioned above in addressing the issue of poverty. THe Struggle Continues!!!! Ndey Jobarteh NB: Ebrima i hope you are fasting:) "B.M.Jones" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: 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 > >______________________________________________________ > >Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > >To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L > >Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html > > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > ______________________________________________________ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L > Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------- B.M.Jones [log in to unmask] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ____________________________________________________________________ Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------