By Patience Loum
The World Bank Group in partnership with the Gambia Government launched a five-year development strategy on Wednesday, 17th May 2022 through a new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) to aid in the country’s development priorities including infrastructure and economic growth under the theme “Galvanizing towards accelerated growth, productivity, and resilience”.
The CPF, which works in line with the National Development Plan (NDP) consists of a series of areas of focus, key amongst them is the E-Government Strategy 2020-2022.
In his speech, the former Minister of Information, Ebrima Sillah welcomed the partnership which he believes will significantly aid in the ongoing government policies to help scale up national development through a well-established level of democracy, transparency and resilience.
“To improve the efficiency and effectiveness in public service delivery, the Government of the Gambia through a World Bank-funded project under the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs is in the process of digitizing revenue collection and public procurement systems,” he said.
He told delegates in attendance that the E-Government strategy 2020-2024 was formulated to facilitate the government of ICTs in general in government procedures and processes. If the strategy is implemented as planned, it will minimize corruption in public services by limiting direct contact with public officials and clientele, he enthused.
“To this end, the following strategies have been developed to support the achievement of the priority areas of the NDP through the ICTs which include the E-agriculture strategy, the broadband strategy, the E-N strategy, the human capital development strategy, cyber security strategy, youth and women development strategy, etc,” he concluded.
Ms Feyi Boroffice, the World Bank country representative in the Gambia said the CPF will look into key areas of focus some of which are outlined below
- 70 per cent reduction in fiscal transfers to SOEs,
- 90 per cent of households to have access to electricity,
- 68 per cent increase in mobile money account,
- 250,000 people protected against coastal and urban flooding, and
- 65 per cent increase in the average reading comprehension in public elementary schools.
“These are all ambitious goals that the CPF is covering and we believe that working together with the government, we can support the government in achieving these goals over the next five years,” said the World Bank Country Representative.
