The World Bank in The Gambia

Stretching 450 km along the Gambia river, the country is surrounded by Senegal, except for a 60-km Atlantic Ocean front. The country is one of the smallest in Africa, covering about 10.7 thousand square kilometers and has a population of 2.5 million. With 176 people per square kilometer, it is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa. Most of the population (57%) is concentrated around urban and peri-urban centers.  

Political Context 

The Gambia is a multiparty republic. Under the 1997 constitution, the President is the head of state and government, and is elected by universal suffrage to a five-year term. The 2016 Presidential Election led to the end of the autocratic rule of former President Yahya Jammeh, who was in power from 1994 to 2017. Subsequent presidential elections took place on December 4, 2021. The incumbent President Adama Barrow was declared the winner by the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) with 53.2% of the vote and was inaugurated for a second term on January 19, 2022.  

Economic Overview 

Economic growth is projected to rise to 4.8% in 2023, driven by increased activity across all sectors. Agriculture and services benefited from favorable rainfall and a gradual recovery in tourism. Private sector investment, supported by remittance inflows, and public investment, are also expected to drive growth.  Despite positive GDP growth, rising food prices are expected to lead to an increase poverty to 18.5% in 2023, from 17.7% in 2022 - an increase of over 33,000 people, using the international poverty line of $2.15 (in 2017 PPPs). The sharp increase in poverty is largely due to weaker growth in per capita GDP, and high prices eroding the purchasing power of households. GDP growth is projected to average 5.4% in 2024-25, driven by increased activity in all sectors.

Inflation increased to 18.4% (year-on-year) in August 2023, the highest level in decades, driven by food prices due to both imported food and poor domestic production due to climatic conditions, utility tariffs increases, and currency depreciation.

The fiscal deficit is expected to remain high, at 4.2% of GDP in 2023 (a primary deficit of 1% of GDP), despite revenue collection efforts, including increases in some excise and ad valorem taxes. Public expenditure is set to remain high owing to increased investment spending in road infrastructure and higher debt servicing, as yields on government securities rose due to monetary tightening. Public debt is projected to decrease to 81% of GDP in 2023. The risk of overall and external debt distress remains high as per the joint WB/IMF Debt Sustainability Analysis (DSA) completed in June 2023 and the preliminary findings of the ongoing DSA (started in September 2023).

The current account deficit (CAD) is projected to remain large in 2023 at 12.3% of GDP, as imports pick up due to private and public construction projects. The Central Bank maintained a tight monetary stance, increasing its policy rate by 1 ppt to 17% in August 2023 – the 6th increase since May 2022.

Last Updated: Sep 30, 2023

The Country Partnership Framework (CPF) for the period of 2022-2026 is aligned with Gambia’s National Development Plan (NDP) and focuses on accelerating the country’s transition out of fragility and on supporting the Government’s vision of sustainable, resilient, and inclusive growth. Building on past and ongoing assistance, this partnership between the World Bank Group and the Gambia covers 3 priority areas: 

Strengthen Transparency, Accountability, and Effectiveness in Governance to support the efforts to improve the transparency, accountability, and effectiveness of the public administration and provide room in the government’s budget for productive investments in infrastructure and human capital.  

Enable Inclusive and Resilient Private Sector Driven Job Creation to support the efforts to create an enabling business environment that fuels job creation by investing in infrastructure, strengthening the role of commercial agriculture, boosting the tourism sector, and increasing urban, coastal and climate resilience. 

Enhancing Human Capital investments to Develop a Productive Workforce to support the efforts to improve the quality of and access to essential healthcare, expand social protection services, enhance the quality of education, and explore ways to improve skills and employability of women and youth.  

The CPF is anchored on two cross-cutting principles: i) accelerate Cross-sectoral Digital Transformation; and ii) empower Women and Girls.

Last Updated: Sep 30, 2023

Energy and Water

The combined national and regional energy projects under supervision are over $250 million. The Gambia Electricity Restoration and Modernization Project (GERMP, P163568) was approved for $43 million in May 2018 with additional financing of $41 million approved in 2020.  Complementary regional projects include the OMVG Regional Interconnection Project (with $47 million World Bank financing out of a $86 million allocation) and the ECOWAS Regional Access Project ($66 million allocation for The Gambia). 

This portfolio has enabled much-improved operational and financial performance for National Water and Electric Company (NAWEC). These gains were however eroded in 2022 following material deviations in oil prices and a stagnant tariff resulting in substantial losses, over $45m. Operational improvements however continue to materialize with system wide blackouts reducing from 19 in 2022 to 10 in 2023. The deployment of prepaid meters continues to provide significant opportunity to NAWEC in improving collections. Collection efficiency currently stands over 97% denoting the substantive deployment of meters across all customer classes. An organizational restructuring has been completed with the creation of distinct business units (Water & Electricity). Service reliability for water remains intermittent, particularly across the Greater Banjul Area (GBA). To address some of these issues, GERMP includes $11.5 million for the following activities: investments in enhanced water quality solutions at selected water treatment stations; intervention boreholes; rehabilitation of water storage tanks; new network connections; treatment of non-revenue water (NRW); energy efficiency measures; and a pilot to reduce physical and commercial water losses. 

Social Protection

The nascent Social Protection System was a critical element of the COVID-19 response. The $30 million Social Safety Net Project (P167260) was restructured in June 2020 and $10 million was re-allocated to support a broader program of short-term cash transfers (Nafa Quick) during the COVID-19 containment period, which benefited 78,422 households in 30 rural districts for 4 months. The Nafa Program was successfully scaled up in August 2022, to an additional 17 poor districts reaching an additional 14,190 households bringing the total number of beneficiary households to 17,036 households.  

The WBG is working with other development partners to support the National Social Protection Secretariat so that it becomes an effective, coordination unit for social protection.  The social registry is to ensure that social programs of all sectors are targeted to beneficiaries in need. Data has been collected for the social registry in 36 of the 43 districts of the country.

Health 

The Gambia Essential Health Services Strengthening Project (P173287) ($30 million) approved in October 2020, along with Additional Financing of $50 million approved in November 2021 and Second Additional Financing of $8.83 million approved in July 2023, aims to improve the quality and utilization of essential health services. Notable activities the project has supported include:

• The national expansion of performance-based financing of health facilities. The WB financed the introduction of results-based financing in the health sector in 2014.
• The establishment of the national health insurance authority for the rollout of the National Health Insurance Scheme. The WB provided financial and technical support for drafting of the insurance bill and the enactment by the National Assembly.
• Revamping of the postgraduate medical training program to Gambian doctors with the recruitment of international specialist consultants, mainly from West Africa.
• Establishing for the first time Bachelor of Sciences (BSc) degree programs for Nurse Anesthesia and for Midwifery, and postgraduate diploma nurse programs for Anesthesia, Midwifery, Pediatrics and Perioperative Nursing; and a clinical simulation laboratory for nursing education.  
• Sponsored 23 laboratory technicians to obtain a bachelor’s degree in laboratory in December 2022.
• Establishing an electronic civil registration and vital statistics system which will serve as the foundation for eGovernment thereby making the provision of public services in all sectors more effective and efficient.
• Mass birth registration and national health insurance registration from August 1, 2022 to February 28, 2023. Over 1.1 million people were registered.
• Preparations underway for conducting the World Health Organization (WHO) STEPwise Approach to NCD Risk Factor Surveillance (STEPS) survey.
• Supported the procurement of a mobile cinema truck (the first of its kind in The Gambia) to facilitate the rollout of Social and Behavior Change Communication activities.
• The ongoing construction and equipment, at Farato, of the national emergency treatment center intensive care unit, emergency observation and treatment center, national public health laboratory and training center, national blood transfusion center, conference center and diagnostic imaging center.
• Designs completed and renovation underway for dilapidated asbestos-containing health facilities.
• Renovation underway for X-ray rooms in 5 hospitals.
• Designing/selection of contractors underway for renovation and equipment of health facilities.
• The MOH is embarking on digitalization of the health sector with establishing health information systems that are interoperable with the existing District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS2).

Education

The Gambia is seeking to mitigate the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the education system, while continuing to move forward with its Education Sector Strategic Plan (ESSP) 2018-2030. The Education Sector Support Program (ESSP-P162890) was approved on March 28, 2018, and will be closing on June 30, 2023. It was followed by an additional financing approved on June 10, 2021. The objective of this operation is to increase access to early childhood development and basic education and improve the quality of teaching and learning. It is expected to benefit 411,000 school-aged children. At the post-secondary level, The Gambia is a part of the regional Africa Centers for Excellence (ACE) Impact project which is transforming the Gambia Technical Training Institute (GTTI) into a STEM-focused center of excellence.

Agriculture The Gambia’s economy is heavily dependent on agriculture, contributing 17% of GDP and 30-40% of foreign exchange earnings from exports. The $40 million Gambia Inclusive and Resilient Agricultural Value Chains Development Project (P173070), approved in November, 2021, and effective as of March 14, 2022, promotes the development of four key priority agricultural value chains: (i) rice (substituting for increasing imports); (ii) horticulture (vegetables and mangoes for urban centers and export); (iii) cashews (for domestic processing and export); and (iv) poultry (for urban centers), in conjunction with maize for feed.

Good progress is being achieved with (i) studies completed (detailed value chains, SPS, agro-logistic centers as marketing infrastructures); (ii) technical design on-going (irrigation, feeder roads); (iii) 500 tons of improved climate-smart varieties of rice (350 tons) and maize (150 tons) seeds procured and distributed on time to about 11,000 farmers in 2022 (60% women and 35% youth 18-35 years old) and 16,000 farmers in 2023 through a digital mobile application to ensure targeting, transparency, and efficiency with positive impact on agricultural productivity and production contributing to improve country food security in this context of global food crisis; (iv) the implementation of the matching grant (MG) with about 7,000 business plans applications received from smallholders and SMEs. A total of 19 SMEs competitively selected received their grant for an amount of $4 million and $2.6 million of private capital mobilized to match the grant. The smallholders and groups' applications are being assessed by the country MG selection committee with support from the technical assistance firm hired.

The AG team is cooperating with the Transport, Land and Water GPs to quickly prepare the additional financing to support the fertilizer program ($15M) combined with (i) rural/peri-urban water program ($20M) to expand irrigation and improve access to drinkable water; and (ii) land tenure intervention ($10M) building on GIRAV experience in improving/securing women land ownership and promoting digital registration.

Last Updated: Sep 30, 2023

Partnerships and Donor coordination 

The World Bank Gambia Country team works closely with Development Partners in the country and is a member of the Development Partners’ Group (DPG).  The DPG has six Thematic Working Groups based on The Gambia’s development needs and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

On the economic front, the World Bank Group and the IMF have coordinated closely with the G20 and the Government on the country’s response to the macroeconomic shocks of the pandemic and the spillover impacts of the Ukraine war, including on fiscal relief provided by the Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI). In the energy sector, the World Bank is working together with the European Union and the European Investment Bank. In the health sector, it consults closely with UNOPS, the Global Fund, WHO, UNICEF, and UNDP. In the education sector, the World Bank collaborates closely with the Global Partnership for Education and UNICEF. The World Bank is also a leading partner in social protection, together with UNICEF, WFP, and the European Union.

Last Updated: Sep 30, 2023