Evaluation of IFAD's programme in The Gambia points to good project design but pitfalls in targeting

Participants at IFAD Evaluation Workshop

Development projects carried out in The Gambia by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) – the UN agency specializing in rural development – have been well designed, but faced challenges during their implementation, an evaluation report produced by IFAD’s Independent Office of Evaluation (IOE) revealed today at a national workshop in Banjul.

The evaluation assessed five IFAD-financed projects carried out between 2004 and 2014. According to the report, the projects had an overall positive impact on the rural population. For example, they enabled families to purchase items that gradually covered the households’ needs and made them more self-sufficient. Village savings and credit associations encouraged families to invest more time in income-generating activities, such as producing groundnut paste, tie and dye fabrics, and soap,  resulting in an increase in basic household assets. Through the Participatory Integrated Watershed Management Project (PIWAMP), food-crop production grew from 4,503 to 50,481 metric tons (MT) from 2006 to 2012, a 41-fold increase.

BAJ-Gambia National Coordinator off to Kenya for climate change training

Sallah BAJ-Gambia National  Coordinator

Mr Abdou Rahman Sallah an environmental journalist with The Point newspaper who doubles as national coordinator for Biodiversity Action Journalists Gambia on Saturday 25^th January left Banjul International Airport for Kenya to join a team of participants from other parts of the world for a two weeks training on Climate Change organized by Youth Encounter on Sustainability (YES) in Kenya

  

He has been selected out of a big pool of applicants to participate to this YES course in Kenya, January 28th – February 14^th 2014. This is a two week intensive course operated by myclimate, a Swiss Non-Profit foundation together with ACTIS, a Spin-off organisation of ETH Zürich, in cooperation with UNEP, and the Alliance for Global Sustainability (AGS) – an environmental research partnership between the ETH Zürich, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Tokyo (UT) and the Chalmers Technical University in Göteborg /Sweden.

YES courses have been operated since the year 2000 in different parts of the world with the goal to bring together a diverse group of motivated future leaders (university graduates, PhD students, young professionals) for learning, discussing and debating urgent questions of a sustainable future for mankind, in a global and regional perspective.

Gambia: CPA from the perspective of project staff

Written by Jorge Esteban Moreno and Alessia Bartolucci

Group Pic: Gambian Delegates (Credit: @IFAD}

Following the success of the joint Headquarters -country CPA meeting, on 7 November 2013, The Gambia team hosted a learning event on the Country Programme Approach (CPA) at IFAD headquarters taking advantage of the presence in Rome of a Gambia delegation attending the 2nd Financial Management Forum. The Gambia delegation was led by Mod K. Ceesay, Permanent Secretary II from Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs. With a room full of participants, Lamin AD Sanyang (Chairperson of the CPA and Project Director of LHDP), gave a detailed presentation on the overall, progress, achievements and lessons learned made by the team. 

The CPA comprises the four IFAD-financed on-going projects namely: RFP, PIWAMP, Nema and LHDP under the Ministry of Agriculture. The approach enables the creation of synergies between all projects and consolidates IFAD’s operations in the Gambia. Single project performance is no longer considered sufficient and the CPA ensures maximum impact of project implementation.

IFAD funded projects linking beneficiaries with rural MFIs

Group Pic: CBG, RFP, Nema/PIWAMP, LHDP, GYIN Gambia

The International Fund for Agricultural Development Project (IFAD) supported projects in The Gambia-Rural Finance Project (RFP), Participatory Integrated Watershed Management Project (PIWAMP)/ National Agricultural Land and Water Management Development Project (Nema) and Livestock and Horticulture Development Project (LHDP) together with Micro-Finance Department Central Bank of The Gambia (CBG) and Global Youth  Innovation Network Gambia chapter (GYIN Gambia chapter) are on a countrywide tour linking Country Programme Approach (CPA) beneficiaries to Micro-Finance Institutions (MFIs) in their respective regions.

IFAD, CBG, SDF Organises National Microfinance Summit

The first Microfinance summit was organised in 2003, the second National Microfinance Summit jointly funded by the Central Bank of The Gambia (CBG) in collaboration with the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) funded project in The Gambia Rural Finance Project (RFP), and Social Development Fund (SDF) organised the

summit on the theme “Building a Sustainable Microfinance Subsector for Poverty Alleviation” 30^th October to 1 November, 2013 at the Kairaba Beach Hotel.