Country Gets $28 Million Assistance to Fight Poverty

from All Africa

FOROYAA Newspaper (Serrekunda)

By Bubacarr K. Sowe

The Gambia has benefited about $28 million from the World Bank and the African Development Bank Joint Assistance Strategy (JAS) to support the implementation of the country's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP II) for the period of 2008 to 2011.

According to a release from the World Bank Communication and Learning Coordinator in Dakar, Mademba Ndiaye. The endorsement for the assistance was done by the World Bank Board of Executive Directors on February 26 in Washington, United States.

Madani M. Tall, country director for The Gambia, is quoted by the release as saying, "this JAS is an important step in the process of aid harmonisation because for that small country, more than 15 donors are providing assistance, which is channelled through a broad variety of entities, both governmental and non-governmental, and although most external partners are aligning external assistance with country objectives, they are preparing separate assistance strategies for the period 2007-2011".

Francoise Perrot, task team leader for the Bank noted that the strategy represents the first step of an effort to harmonise donor assistance in The Gambia in line with the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness.

"It will allow us to align our development programme, avoid duplication of efforts, and combine our technical expertise," Ms. Perrot said.

She said that the joint strategy is prepared on the basis of an estimated $18 million allocation on the World Bank side and $10 million on the AfDB side over the period of 2008-2011.

"These are indicative amounts," Ms. Perrot added.

The release indicates, "under this joint strategy, the World Bank and the AfDB have developed shared-objectives and a common platform for lending and non-lending services under two main pillars. So that the two institutions will support The Gambia to strengthen its institutional framework for economic management and public service delivery, and to enhance its productive capacity and accelerate growth and competitiveness. These will include coordinated contribution to budget support, complementary investments in growth and competitiveness, and joint analytical work in the areas of public finance, civil service reform and governance."

The release states that the Gambian economy has been strong in recent years, with an average annual real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of about 6% during 2003-2006.

It added that the completion of a Millennium Development Goals-based Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper II (2007-2011), the completion point under Highly Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) in December 2007 and eligibility under Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI) and indications of increased project aid from development partners provide an opportunity for the country's achievements and accelerated growth.

The Housing Crisis

from All Africa

FOROYAA Newspaper (Serrekunda)

The people often talk about the high cost of food. Housing is hardly mentioned. However, housing is next to food and water in the hierarchy of needs. Without a safe and spacious house to live in life can be a bed of thorns. This is precisely the situation of many families today.

Some time ago, a woman who is extremely skilful and had been abroad with her husband, narrated her ordeal to Foroyaa. She was a prominent woman married to a prominent man during the earlier days of her life. Separation led to disintegration of family life. She struggled with the children until they grew up.

She makes soap, creams and other items to cope with the requirements of daily life. Her major problem was housing. She had to go and rent.

Sometime ago, the representative of the landlord started to find every excuse to remove all the tenants from the building. She could not understand why the man had suddenly become uncooperative. She fell ill and missed payment for one month and the man decided to take her to the Rent Tribunal to ask for her eviction.

She started to look for a place to move to since the person had developed an attitude which she had not been used to. She started to discover what was behind the action of the man when he developed the same attitude towards tenants who had not defaulted in the payment of their rent.

She discovered that the land lord wanted all of them to be evicted after receiving rent from them for years because his sister's family could no longer stay abroad and wanted them to take over the building after they, as tenants, had paid more than the cost of the building.

Instead of giving her time to find a place to move to the man hastily looked for an eviction order. To her surprise the forces came while she was still in her room and decided to throw her lifelong possessions out destroying many of her precious things. Neighbours quickly tried to help her to secure some of the things lying in the street. With tears rolling down her cheeks she wondered what she had done to deserve such brutal treatment. She had to go back to her congested family home to seek sanctuary and leave all her possession scattered in different houses of her neighbours.

Every time we talk to this woman she is complaining about pain near her heart and she mfinds it difficult to breathe with ease. She constantly calls to lament the humiliation she had undergone. She is questioning whether there is no law governing the removal of the property of a person from a building where she has paid rent for years.

She wants to know whether it is the law which says that such properties should be thrown into the street without concern as to whether they will be broken or destroyed. She claims that if the law does not protect the poor from losses then the law is a savage one.

The dilemma of this woman is what many poor families in the urban areas are faced with today. Most families do not have houses of their own. They rent one or two bedroom houses, which hardly have internal toilet facilities or a place to cook from. In most instances, they take bath and urinate at the back of their houses allowing the raw liquid waste to flow into the street.

It is not uncommon to find houses which are so congested that children sleep on the floor at night. Such children cannot be under mosquito nets. Hence they always fall ill with Malaria. Poverty is real for such families.

The unfortunate thing with the country is that there is too little effort devoted to solving the housing crisis. Instead of housing programmes developed for low income earners, public corporations are busy patronizing housing schemes which provide accommodation to those who can purchase a building for over a million dalasi.

The suffering of the poor is increasing and evictions are becoming rampant as middle income landlords, who live off their rent, become desperate and increase rents, while the poor find it difficult to pay rent.

Foroyaa will interview the necessary authorities to find out whether there are humane ways of evicting tenants who become even poorer as their life possessions are destroyed during the process.

A people centred government must have policies, programmes, projects and laws which ease the suffering of the people. Democracy gives the poor one key power to check the growth of their poverty, that is, the voting right. They are at liberty to exercise it to put in place governments whose policies programmes, projects and laws will seek to ease their suffering and enhance their protection.

No Loans Or Grants Can Reduce Poverty But

from All Africa

FOROYAA Newspaper (Serrekunda)

NEWS

In his reaction to the Budget delivered by the Secretary of State for Finance and Economic Affairs at the National Assembly, the member for Wuli West constituency, Hon. Sidia Jatta asserted that no amount of loan or grants can reduce poverty in this country. Honorable Jatta pointed that the only way to bring about poverty reduction in the Gambia is to create employment opportunities, improve agricultural production and address the chronic problem of groundnut marketing. Sidia argued that unemployment and underemployment are major factors of poverty in this country, yet the National Budget is completely silent on the issue. He said the rate of unemployment in the country is so great that it is one of the fundamental reasons why the youth are risking their lives to go to Europe, because they cannot have the means of survival in their country.

Recently, Sidia said, 130 youths who were on board a boat missed their way, fifty of them lost their lives and some are still hospitalised in Dakar. Sidia asserted that any meaningful poverty reduction program must address this crucial issue of unemployment and underemployment, otherwise poverty would only escalate.

On Improved Agricultural Production

On the issue of improved agricultural production, Sidia pointed out that land is the most significant factor in agricultural production but, as he said, the problem in this country is that the land is dead and that fertilizer is extremely expensive. Last year he said, the cost of fertilizer went up to D700 per bag. Sidia pointed out that anybody who wants to have good produce must use fertilizer, because if one wants to use a virgin land the forestry department would not allow them because they (forestry) said it contributes to deforestation. He agued that due to high cost of fertilizer and the lack of fertility of the soil, farm produce this year, in some parts of the country, would be terribly bad and in other parts fairly good. To reduce poverty in this country, Sidia stressed that the issue of fertilizer must be addressed because fertilizer is very crucial in agricultural production.

On the Marketing of Groundnut

On the marketing of groundnuts, the National Assembly member for Wuli West said it is a crucial issue on the drive to reduce poverty. He pointed out that last year the marketing of groundnuts in the country was a fiasco, since the buying centers that were established did not operate and that farmers were asked to sell their groundnuts at the depots, which required a minimum of five tonnes. "Which farmer in this country is capable to producing five tonnes of groundnut?" asked Sidia.

He also said the cost involved to cross the river in his area to take their groundnut to the depot at Basse, makes it impossible for any farmer to take his or her groundnuts to Basse depot. Sidia stressed that the issue of groundnut marketing in this country needs to be reviewed seriously. He said every year the government would promise that a task force has been created to look into the issue but those task forces have not come with any realistic solutions to the problem. Sidia argued that unless the Seccos that were established before are operational and the problem of credit buying addressed, poverty in this country will never be reduced, he concluded.

IMF Approves US$3.1m for Gambia

from All Africa

The Daily Observer (Banjul)

By Musa Ndow

The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), has completed the first review of The Gambia's economic performance under a program supported by a three-year Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) arrangement.

After completing the review, the executive board approved the authorities' request for waivers of non-observance of two structural performance criteria pertaining to the submission of an audit report on monetary data and the implementation of the Central Project Management and Aid Coordination Directorate (CPMACD), and one quantitative performance criterion relating to the non accumulation of external payments arrear. The completion of the first review enables the release of an account equivalent to SDR 2 million (about U$3.1million) for The Gambia.

The Gambia's PRGF arrangement was approved on February 21, 2007 for an amount equivalent to SDR 14 million (about US$21.5 million).

According to reports from the IMF, following the executive board discussion on the Gambia's economic performance, Mr Murilo Portugal, Deputy Managing Director and Acting Chair revealed that, The Gambia has made good progress towards macro-economic stability and higher economic growth and performance under the PRGF-supported program.

"Fiscal discipline will be vital to achieve debt sustainability and protect social spending. The government is seeking to curtail its domestic borrowing requirement in order to keep real interest rates down and stimulate private investment. To this end, it will continue to strengthen tax administration, fully implement the integrated financial management information system that has been crucial in keeping expenditures in line with appropriations, and avoid extra-budgetary spending. Budget formulation and execution will be guided by the priorities set out in the new poverty reduction strategy paper," he said.

According to him, the government of The Gambia is committed to maintain price stability and increase the effectiveness of the monetary policy. "To this end, steps are underway to strengthen the operational independence of the Central Bank of the Gambia (CBG), including implementation of an Action Plan to bring CBG lending to the government within statutory limit. The CBG and the government are also working towards improving of the coordination of fiscal and monetary operations in order to enhance the effectiveness of the CBG's liquidity management," he observed.

He further noted that, authorities have made good progress towards reaching the completion point under the enhanced heavily indebted poor countries initiatives.

He further added that, reaching the completion will also make The Gambia eligible for assistance under the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative. "In order to ensure that debt relief move the country's external debt to a sustainable path, the authorities intend to rely as much as possible on grants rather than external loans to finance their development program," he stated.

Mr Portugal then announced that loans are contracted and would be on highly concessional terms.